
Book ,J\t 5J13 



DAY-DREAMS 



/S66 



BUTTERFLY 



IN NINE PARTS. 



\ 



-VSi. 



I'll wing me through creation like a bee, 
And taste the gleaming spheres. 

—A. Smith, 



Shall he, 
******* 

Who lored, who suffered countless ills, 
Who battled for the true, the just, 
Be blown about the desert dust, 

Or sealed within the iron hills ? 

— A. TEXXY3-OX- 




KISGSTON, C. W. 



JAMES M. CREIGHTOX, BOOK AND JOB PRI3TTBB, BBOCK STHII7 

1854. 



* 



?**«$ 



"b 



^ 



ERRATA. 

Page 22. — For "Swan Ganoids," read— Swam Ganoids. 

26.— For "Needs," read— Need. 

47. — For " Expends each white sail," read — expands, &c. 

53. — For " azure-dowed," read — azure-domed. 

84. — For " Germ enshined," read — germ enshrined. 
112. — For " sun All-raging " read — sun All-raying. 
121. — For "jems," read — gems. 
140. — For "tracts" read — tracks. 
146. — Read " pulley and cord." 

ADDENDA. 

How much the author is indebted to Mr. George Combe he leaves 
to the intelligent reader of his influential writings to imagine. 

Sir C. Lyell says, that, in Wales, "coprolites referred to fish" 
have been found " lower " than the Wenlock limestones of the Up- 
per Silurian, How much lower he does not, I think, state. 






0* 



&:& 



h 



PREFACE. 



In the following pages the attention is confined 
exclusively to Nature. Her volume is opened 
and she is interrogated respecting some of the 
leading phenomena of existence. 

The inquiry may be conceived to have been 
conducted amid the fluctuations of opinion during 
the varied stages of mental growth from youth to 
manhood, and likewise to represent the different 
phases of thought of more than one individual or 
sect of thinkers ; otherwise some passages — though 
not intended to represent the settled judgment of 
the author — might convey a false impression or 
even appear contradictory : and though there are 
points on which the writer entertains strong opinions, 
yet he prefers that his efforts generally should be 
regarded as a series of questions put to Nature 



herself, and that a spirit of self-inquiry and inde- 
pendence should be exercised by all in the forma- 
tion of their opinions, selecting for themselves 
what they believe to be most accordant with truth. 

To some minds few subjects present more 
interest than Geology. The different formations 
are the different chapters of the book of Nature ; 
the strata are the leaves, in which is written 
authentically the wonderful history of the past. 
On this subject, which forms a large portion of 
the " first part " of my little volume, I have been 
much indebted to one author in particular. 

It may not be unprofitable to ask — What rela- 
tion do I bear to the Universe? How came I 
here ? Whither go I ? Had my existence a motive? 
If so, what was it ? This earth, what is it ? These 
heavens, what are they ? Myself, what am I ? How 
constituted, how circumstanced, how actuated ) 
By this it may be seen what response, if any, reason 
interpreting nature really does give to each. 
Can we "by searching find out God? " 



Commenced as a playful reply to a clever and 
amusing little piece written by a lady friend, on a 
subject wholly different, it became, as it proceeded, 
more serious. It was thus that the * butterfly " 
was introduced, flitting alike through the flowers 
of the field, the systems of the stars, or the empires 
of mind; and, wisely or foolishly, uttering what 
she chose. The first part was subsequently lopped 
off, but the " butterfly " retained. 

To free, speculative minds, deeply imbued with 
a sense of the wonderful and beautiful in nature, it 
may afford some pleasure to look into the mysteri- 
ous abyss of being, to speculate on the future, to 
hang dreamily over the past Oh, it is wonderful, 
very wonderful indeed. In the light of natures- 
being is a mystery inexpressibly grand ! 

Kingston, June, 1854. 



DAY-DREAMS. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

A Butterfly, in the very joyousness of existence, dreams of 
prospective pleasures amongst the fields and flowers of nature. 
(Page 7 — 11.) The clear blue Heavens of the silent night awaken 
thoughts more serious. (11.) Mind and external nature are inter- 
rogated respecting G-od. What is he ? What the mode of his be- 
ing? (12 — 18.) Geology or the wonderful volume of mysterious 
pre-historic nature is opened, and some of her strangest facts un- 
veiled. (18 — 23.) Did things observe a progress? Do new origins 
require new direct interference ? Or are things naturally consequent, 
and the laws of being infallible in their execution ? (25 — 30) Our 
solar system, how? (31.) 

PART II. 

The great dumb past. (33, 34.) Man viewed as an organized 
being, in his individual, domestic, social relations. (34, 35, &c.) 
Self-love, affection, kindness, reverence, hope, imagination, intel- 
lect, conscience. Their harmonious and inharmonious interaction. 
(35 — 47.) The merely plausible, evanescent: the true, permanent* 
(480 

PART III. 

Our organization wonderful in its details and adaptations to 
particular ends, (49 — 52, and Appendix, 146, 147) : but failing as 
a whole to achieve any grand result. (52, 53.) Has this (read by 
the light of hope and goodness) any prospective pomtings ; or is 
all to end in apparent failure ? (147, 148 & 54.) 

PART IV. 

Why God may throw a veil of obscurity over the future (55 — 56) 
Love of the true and good, the pabulum of genuine nobility of soul. 
(56—60.) Thoughts on worship. (60—64.) 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PART V. 

How dark and fearful misgivings arise unbidden in the souL 
(65 — 66:) Cold materialism. Is the present the first and last act of 
the drama of existence. (66—70.) Can it, must it, be? (70—71.) 
What we may know : what we know not. (71 — 72.) What is our 
goal? Has nature no fixed guiding star ? (72 — 73.) 

PART VI. 

We know that mind is : is it equally certain that matter * is 
(74, 75.) Yet shall we conclude mind perishable, matter eternal ? 
(75.) What, if matter be merely a product of mind during the 
dominion of the senses (76)— if from the central Sun of Spirit the 
universe is spun, a web of immaterial being — tL«* far-reaching lines 
of divine magnetism extending to the remot^ outskirts of exis- 
tence, embracing and controlling alike the atom and the mass — 
force communicating itself to the central ruling orbs of the star-fir- 
maments and to all particles of their volumes — the heart-force, 
through each ganglion, to the minutest portion of each nerve. 
(77—82.) 

PART VII. 

Events, in the external and internal worlds, the results of ade- 
quate causes. (83 — 91.) 

PART VIII. 

Idealism. (92, 93.) Argument from dreams, hallucinations, 
illusions, Ac, biology, the phenomena of reflection (93 — 103), the 
colour and shape of the media of vision. (120.) How mind creates 
her wonders — the azure heaven with her diadem of stars painted on 
the sense-retina. (104, Ac.) Life one diversifying herself into lives 
many of myriad forms of beauty. (110—120.) Knowledge whence ? 
(121.) Death frees the soul from the lordship of the senses. 

PART IX. 

No Space. (125—126.) No Time. Past, Present, Future, crea- 
tures of the senses. (126.) How conceived. (129—132.) Conclu- 
sion of Idealism. (132 — 134.) 

* Idealism, as a system of philosophy, in its bearings on im- 
mortality and generally, poetized. 



DAY-DREAMS, 



PART I. 



"Let us (since life can little more supply, 
Than just to look about us and to die) 
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man. 7 ' 

—Pope. 



A Butterfly bright, 

From grey morn till night, 

On pinions of Fancy I'll fly, 
With wings, oh how soft, 
I'll be borne aloft, 

Beneath the blue-canopied sky. 



8 DAY-DREAMS. 

And in sunny dell, 
I'll kiss the gay bell 

Of foxglove and cowslip of gold ; 
The honey I'll sip 
From each fragrant lip, 

Whose beauty soft sunbeams unfold. 

And when I would drink, 
I'll light by the brink 

Of the crystal and sunlit spring ; 
Or the pearl I'll seek 
On the moss-rose cheek, 

And rival its hues with my wing. 

Gay creature of air, 
Without fear or care, 

I'll roam through wide nature's domains; 
The blue sky above, 
My heart full of love, 

I'll list to the lark's glowing strains. 



DAY-DREAMS. 9 

For song — gift of Heaven— 
To us has been given 

To gladden the soul, to express 
The holy demand 
Of nature, God-planned, 

That blessed ourselves, we too bless. 

And, in noontide heat, 
I'll bathe my soft feet 

In the spray of the bubbling stream : 
I'll spread my gay wings 
O'er all beautiful things, 

And only of happiness dream. 

And in grassy glade, 
I'll seek the soft shade 

Of the myrtle and woodbine twined, 
And where violets sweet 
With the primrose meet, 

And mingle their odors combined. 



10 DAY-DREAMS. 

And when evening grey 
Shuts the' eye of the day, 

I'll hie to the jessamine bower, 
And seek sweet repose 
On the moss-clad rose, 

And enjoy the cool twilight hour. 

Or the lamp of night, 
With its dreamy light, 

I'll watch from my pillow of leaves, 
And the firefly's play 
By the pale moon's ray, [heaves. 

Till my breast with new transport 

And when morning bright, 
In mantle of light, 

Hath lifted night's curtain of cloud, 
I'll hasten away 
To sport in the spray 

Of the cataract roaring loud. 



DAY-DREAMS. 11 

Or Silence and Night, 
Their empire unite, 

And hold uncontested domain, 
I'll count the bright stars, 
Fair Venus and Mars, 

The Pleiads, Orion, the Wain. 

And when every breath 
In silence like death 

Is hushed, and the darkness still gains, 
I'll think of the hands 
Which marshalled their bands 

O'er Heaven's unlimited plains. 

For the clear, deep blue 
With its crystal dew, 

—Pearls dropt from, the eyelids of night— 
And silence which seems 
Like eloquent dreams, 

To thoughts deep and solemn invite- 



12 DAY-DREAMS. 

What art thou, Lord, 
By whose forming word 

The vast panorama arose, 
Whose pillars sustain 
The great starry frame, 

And whose arms all nature enclose. 

What art thou ? Pure Mind ? 
Thy footprints to find 

We seem, through life's varied domain, 
In heart, brain, and eye 
Of bird, fish, or fly, 

Or man, the last link of her chain. 

But these are not thou ? 
Great God, when and how 

Shall thy creatures thee learn to know ; 
Thy thoughts and thy mind, 
Not earth, ocean, wind, 

The garments* of Godhead below, 

* Appendix A. 



DAY-DREAMS. 13 

In this world terrene, 
A mere speck, unseen 

From a star in the milky way : 
A hem of thy robe 
Is this nether glojoe, 

The abode of the sons of clay. 

In the starlit sky, 
Thou art surely nigh, 

'Mid the glittering hosts of Heaven : 
In yon blue expanse, 
Where bright Seraphs dance, 

The privilege high must be given, 

To behold thy face, 
In that glorious place, 

Where the Cherubim veil their eyes 
From the dazzling light 
Of the star-lamps bright, 

Which light up their paths thro' the skies. 

B 



14 DAY-DREAMS. 

Or are stars the gems 
Of the diadems 

Of bright brilliants, that Angels wear. 
When, through systems above, 
Thy behests of love 

From Empire to Empire they bear ? 

Or are they the seams, 
Through which glory gleams 

From the spirit-trod floor of Heaven ? 
Or some eyelets bright, 
In thy robe of night, 

In mercy to mortals given ? 

Or live we in thee 

And move ? Life's great sea, 

A wave of thy being, roll on ? 
Do the stars sweep through 
The unbounded blue, 

The scintils of thought from its throne ? 



DAY-DREAMS. 15 

In the flower and snow 
Dost thou bud and glow? 

Dost throb in our innermost heart ? 
Alike in the tree 
As the galaxy, 

Of thy being each atom a part ? 

Are the storm and flood 
The palace of God, 

And rides He on the hurricane's wings, 
In the thunder's roar, 
In the earthquake's power, 

On all fearful and awful things ? 

Or in sunshine or calm 
Dwells the great "I am," 

In the breathings of infant love, 
In the purling stream, 
In the Poet's dream, 

On this earth, as in Heaven above ? 



16 BAY-DREAMS. 

Is his throne, then, here ? 
It is everywhere : 

His palace is the boundless space : 
He lives in the wind, 
In the lofty mind, 

Here, in Heaven, in every place. 

In the Earth's gyrations, 
In the heart's pulsations, 

In hopes which crimson on the cheek, 
In the throbbing brain, 
In the wind-lashed main, 

In sunny vale and cloud-capped peak. 

In the rainbow's hues, 
In the pearly dews, 

In the tears of the weeping sky, 
In empires and states, 
In senates' debates, 

In all things — far, near, deep, low r high. 



DAY-DBBAM8. 17 

Prom Jupiter's rings 
To those hidden springs, 

Which govern all matter, heart, mind ; 
From the star-thronged deep 
To the things that creep 

Through stone-pores, his spirit we find. 

Or is there a throne, 
The great spirit's own, 

In a palace of pearly light, 
Where, through fretted aisles, 
A radiance soft smiles, 

And glory and beauty unite ? 

And dwells he alone 
On that sapphire throne, 

In halls tenantless, noiseless, vast, 
Where no echo wakes, 
And no footfall breaks, 

A silence doomed ever to last ? 



18 DAY -DRMIS, 

Or do beings bright 
As the stars at night, 

Of kingly tread and lofty mien 7 
Robed in woof of gold, 
Their high converse hold, 

With minds profound and souls serene. 

And beneath the throne 
Of the Eternal one, 

Reason they of goodness and right ; 
And then pours along 
The full thrilling song, 

Like a flood of all-glorious light? 

And motives and laws, 
The end, means, and cause 

Of matter, mind, duty or will, 
Are the golden themes, 
Which gild their day-dreams, [fill? 

And their souls with rich knowledge 



DAY-DREAMS. 19 

Or hie they afar 
To some distant star, 

On the untrod outskirts of space, 
Its people to learn, 
Its genius discern, 

And annals and origin trace ? 

The bent of the mind, 
For what end designed, 

What course they have hitherto trod, 
What link they attain 
In the golden chain, 

Which ascends to the throne of God ? 

What its rank and age, 
In the' historic page 

Of great Nature's volume of truth, 
Who her annals writes 
With coprolites, [tootL 

The mammoth's bones, and saurian's 



20 day-dreams: 

And on rocks and cliffs, 
In hieroglyphs, 

The dark sphynx-enigma engraves; 
On the dust we tread, 
On the giant dead, 

Submerged by old time's rushing wav es. 

She tells too of throes 
Of nature; of foes 

To piscine and animal life : 
The' Ichthyosaur's sight* 
Her record of light ; 

And its food, of death, pain, and strife. 

Each tooth, foot-print, bone, 
Now bedded in stone, 

Marks eras: the fragments of lime, 
Red sandstone or shale, 
In mountain or vale, 

Tell the story of ancient time. 

* Appendix B. 



DAY-DREAMS. 21 

Of monsters of old, 
That in sliniebeds rolled, 

Or trailed their huge length on the bank 
Of silvery lake, 
Or slept in green brake 

Of giant fern, 'mid herbage rank. 

How the' Ichthyosaur 
And Plesiosaur 

— Fearful creatures of giant make — 
The' Iguanodon 
Huge, and Mastodon [lake. 

Roamed lord-like o'er field, swamp and 

How strange,* monstrous things, 

With leathery wings, [claws, 

Great eyes, serpent's teeth and long 
In the twilight grey, 
Seized their hapless prey, [ed jaws. 

And craunched them with reptile-shap- 

* Appendix C. 



22 DAY-DREAMS. 

We, things of to-day, 
Were unknown, when they 

— Co-evals of mountains, lakes, seas,- 
Were warmed 'neath a sky, 
Where mozambiques fly, 

And fanned by a tropical breeze. 

Oh ages bygone, 
Since a glorious sun, 

With a flood of new heaven-born light, 
Poured his golden rays 
On those coral bays, 

Early homes of the Ammonite ! 

When, in burnished gold, 
Swan Ganoids of old, 

And Sauroids of terrible name ; 
When the' Ammonite sailed, 
And Trilobite failed,* 

Where was man, his work or his fame ? 

♦Appendix D. 



DAY-DREAMS. 23 

Ere through sea-depths, rife 
With animal life, 

The Zoophyte piled up the lime, 
And the coral isle 
First began to smile, 

On the childhood of new-born Time : 

For, is it not true, 

That yon limestone blue, [tread, 

The chalk fields flint-veined, which we 
On the mountains steep, 
In the valleys deep, 

Are the skeletons of the dead. 

When the fucoid first, 
And Zoophyte, burst 

The pale death-prison of the deep : 
When brute matter broke 
Into life, and woke 

From a night of eternal sleep. 



24 DAY-DREAMS. 

Or when creatures — new 
To the then world — flew, 

The first time, o'er mountain, lake, field, 
When Mammifers trod 
On Earth's verdant sod, [yield 

Whilst the' old to new forms of life 

Did God interfere 
In this nether sphere, 

And by direct fiat create, 
From the' unconscious dust, 
— Mere metallic rust — 

The life of the first radiate ? 

Or, in Nature's laws, 
Find we ample cause 

For phenomena new and strange ? 
Did He all forsee 
From eternity, 

And cause folding sequence arrange ? 



DAY-DRBAMS. 25 

The butterfly bright, 
So sylph-like and light, 

Was a chrysalis last month's moon ; 
Was a worm last spring, 
Without horn or wing ; [noon. 

An egg^ ere this, hatched by warm 

The change seems as great 
From each former state, 

Though resulting from natural laws, 
As any we know 
In the depths below, 

Which assumes intervening cause, 

A cycle of earth 
Suffices for birth 

Of Butterfly, child of a day : 
What changes appear 
In an astral year, 

Time's chronicle only can say, 



26 DAY-DREAMS* 

The planets roll on 
Round the' encircled sun, 

By centrifugal force impelled, 
Nor wander through, space, 
In their ceaseless race, 

To their orbits by gravity held. 

"Jf x * The law- once impressed 
On matter, the rest 

Thence follows by natural course : 
Earth's changes to suit, 
The life-parent root 

Expands with new germinal force, 

The will of the' All-wise* 
Is writ on the skies ; 

His language is Nature's fixed laws 7 
Which, through time and space, 
Comprising each case, 

Needs no intercalary clause, 

♦Appendix E. 



DAY-DREAMS. 27 

But we deem there's much, 
In such cases, which 

No general law can explain. 
Because they are few, 
Strange, startling and new, 

To us they seem breaks in life's chain. 

Time's clock seconds notes, 
The minutes too quotes, 

But how can it strike the long hours ? 
To like like succeeds, 
But time new forms needs, 

To gender such life has she powers ? 

A wondrous machine* 
Constructed has been, 

To calculate problems severe : 
By units it counts, 
To millions it mounts, 

Till each future movement seems clear : 

♦Appendix F. 



28 DAY-DREAMS. 

When no more it creeps 
By units, but leaps 

Over hundreds with nervous bound ; 
Then returns with force 
To its wonted course, 

But again deserts its old ground. 

Such inconstancy 
Oft repeated, we 

Suspect intervention or flaw : 
Yet 'tis the result, 
Albeit occult, 

Of higher conception and law. 

It may be that He — 
Who by gravity 

Props the star-studded dome of Heaven, 
Pumps the crystal dew 
Into hare-bells blue — 

To nature the license had given, 



DAY-DREAMS. 29 

Not only to plod 
On her path oft trod, 

But to traverse new kingdoms untold ; 
Her Dodos to kill, 
And their places fill 

- With creatures of different mould ! 

It may be that He 
From eternity 

Stamped on matter the parent type, 
Whence all life expands, 
As progress demands 

The soft germ, rich blossom, fruit ripe. 

At time's natal hour, 

When earthquake's fierce power 

Tore piecemeal the newly-formed earth, 

On land or in sea, 

To fish, beast or tree, 

Nature had not as yet given birth. 
c* 



30 DAY-DREAMS. 

For the nurseling, Life, 
'Mid the deadly strife 

Of fierce, elemental ire, 
Could find no safe Ark, 
In which to embark, 

On an ocean of liquid fire. 

But when the cooled globe, 
Wrapped in warm sea-robe, 

Thin crystalline structure assumed, 
Simple life-forms new 
Through ocean beds grew, 

And Uly-shaped Encrinites bloomed. 

But progress inspires 
New wants, and requires 

Complex beings of nobler grade ; 
Then fish, beast, bird, man 
Appear on life's plan,* 

In the councils of Deity laid. 

* Appendix G. 



DAY-DREAMS. 31 

What too, if the Earth 
A natural birth 

Had, in the dark womb of the past : 
The moon from earth sprung : 
The earth, from the sun ; 

The sun, from a nebula vast, 

Whose currents, set in 
From opposites, spin 

The mass into embryo stars, 
Whose sun-bulks embrace 
The whole orbit-space [Mars, 

Of some Jove, now of scanter-pathed 

And thus, on the page 
Of Time, hint the age 

Successive,* at which they withdrew, 
Henceforward alone, 
In orbits their own, 

To roam through the infinite blue, 

* AppencBxB. 



32 DAY-DREAMS. 

As time's backward course 
We trace, toward its source, 

We more or less dimly descry, 
By lightstreaks, that flit 
O'er mountains sunlit, 

The shores and the pole star on high. 

When further we sail, 
Our lights seem to fail, 

And we drift on a shoreless sea r 
Where, through the domains 
Of night, silence reigns, 

Through a boundless eternity. 



PAY-DREAMS, 83 



PART II. 



A being darkly wise. 

—Pope, 



Down in the dim, deep 
Eternity, sleep 

Speechless ages, whose silence speaks 
Thoughts pregnant of things 
To the soul, and rings 

Deep as thunder on Alpine peaks, 

man, hast thou heard 
Oft, music or word 

Softer, sweeter than that which fills 



34 DAY-DREAMS. 

The soul, like the deep, 
Rich echoes, that sweep 

O'er eternity's voiceless hills? 

Doth thy breast not glow, 
With yearning to know 

The state, shape, cause, motive of things: 
Thy spirit to steep 
In the awful deep, 

And truth drink at being's pure springs ? 



As we firmly hold 
To the dogma bold, 

That matter, if such, has aye been : 
So that it will be 
To eternity, 

By the' optics of reason is seen. 



DAY-DREAMS. 35 

This matter disposed 
Thus, God-head proposed 

To mould into organized form, 
With life, feeling, mind, 
Heart, passions, combined 

With conscience, hopes, sentiments warm, 

By primitive law, 
These adversely draw, 

Maintaining a state of unrest : 
Some principles tend 
To self, their sole end, 

Our quantum of good the sole test, 

Some our children guard ; 
Their simple reward, 

The good they to others create : 
^Tis seen by the sigh, 
By love's kindling eye, 

The strength of the passion how great? 



36 DAY-DREAMS. 

Some nobk employ, 
Seek, free from alloy, 

In benevolent deeds of love ; 
Where fiercest seas roll 
With blind uncontrol, 

Pleads loudest the soul's gentle dove. 

And reverence dwells, 
In man, and compels 

Respect for the good and the true : 
Its purpose designed 
To hallow the mind, 

And soul with true worship imbue. 

For greatness and good 
Are streamlets from God, 

Living fountain from whom they flow 
Their substance enshrined 
In Deity's mind, 

Man's goodness his shadow below. 



DAY-DREAMS. 37 

And Hope paints the high, 
Clear, blue, bending sky, 

In dreamlight of beauty her own ; 
Enrobes Earth's wide scene 
In mantle of green, 

Rayed with light from her golden sun. 

All life's a bright dream : 
As, in sunbeams seen, 

All objects dance, glow to the sight; 
So, as the rays pass 
Through phantasy's glass, 

. Dust turns into gold in her sight. 

The bleak mountain tops, 
To her eye, are props 

High as Heaven, to buttress the clouds ; 
The cold snow, the hoar, 
Which time silvers o'er 

Their brows, whom ripe glory enshrouds. 

D 



38 DAY-DREAMS, 

The lightnings which tear 
Earth's bosom, nor spare 

The great, or the wise, or the good ; 
At which brave hearts quail, 
Are, on a slight scale, 

The beautiful fireworks of God. 

For her Mount Blanc rears 
Her head to the stars, 

And smiles at the lightnings below, 
Which round her breast play, 
And due homage pay 

To the Queen of eternal snow, 

Who looks down, with pride 
Of soul, on the wide 

Dominions, that outspreading lie 
Around her proud throne, 
Whom all freely own 

The cold Queen of sublimity. 



DAY-DREAMS. 39 

Thus Fancy hath scope 
For conjecture ; Hope 

A whole Heaven to people with bright, 
Fair children of bliss, 
Whose happy lot 'tis, 

To love, trace God's works, live in light 

Such sights Poesy, 

By Hope spurr'd, doth see, 

In this ev'ry day world of time ; 
The curtain, which hides 
Her beauties, divides, 

And shews through the rent the sublime. 

But intellect scans 
Life's problem ; demands 

For ev'ry effect solid cause : 
Cold, clear through her glass 
As the light rays pass, 

She peers into nature's fixed laws, 



40 DAY-DREAMS. 

Each phenomenon, 

On earth, in the sun, [time, 

Through the realms of nature, space, 
She weighs in her scale 
— All, each in detail — 

Wherever is rayed the divine, 

Through earth, ocean, wind, 

Star's orbits, man's mind, [ e y e ? 

In grassblades, round dew-drops, the 
In the' enigmas dark 
Which time's annals mark, 

Within her wide province all lie, 

But o'er all domains 

Of mind conscience* reigns, 

With authority, if not might, 
The true, stedfast, strong, 
Stern foe of all wrong, 

And friend, though not umpire, of right. 

♦Appendix I. 



DAY-DREAMS. 41 

For intellect weighs 
Each problem, and lays 

Its decision before the mind : 
The conscience then feels 
Its duty, and seals 

With approval the course defined. 

Of public rights she, 
God's faithful trustee, 

In the bosom of one man lives, 
Another man's right 
To guard with the might, 

"Which simple integrity gives. 

Great engine and blest 
Of good, where the test 

Of truth has been rightly applied : 
Dread engine of ill, 
Where, nerved by strong will, 

False notions e'en good men misguide. 

D* 



42 DAY-DREAMS. 

She may e'en pursue 
With vengeance the few, 

Who her dogmas refuse to obey ; 
But, when understood, 
She clings to the good, 

Life's brightest and gloomiest day. 

For conscience is blind, 
And hence cannot find, 

Through mazes of error, her way, 
Till intellect's light 
Dispels the deep night, 

Converting the darkness to day. 

No organ of mind 
To vice is inclined, 

By its simple and native bent ; 
'Tis fixed in the brain 
To urge or restrain, 

For ends private or social meant 



DAY-DREAMS. 43 

'Tis the work of God, 
Great author of good, 

Who garnished the star-spangled sky, 
Gave earth, sea and air 
Their occupants fair, 

And to the light fashioned the eye 

Of each, by its lens 
Peculiar, which sends 

The light-ray to bear to the mind, 
The knowledge of what 
Takes place in each spot 

Of space, within limits assigned. 

The being great, wise, 
Who piled up the skies, 

And pillared on air the dark clouds ; 
Who fashioned the eye 
Of mammoth and fly, 

And nature with miracle crowds, 



44 BAY-DREAMS. 

Is he who hath made 
Each ganglion, thread, 

And tissue, and nerve of the brain. 
If not he, then who 
Into matter threw 

Subtile thought ? Did he access gain 

To the central throne 
Of God, there alone 

The leaves of his volume to turn, 
And the hidden tie , 
Which mysteriously 

Binds spirit and matter, to learn ? 

And who formed at first 
This nerve ? Gr who durst 

Ingraft so this counterfeit base 
On the god-born brain, 
That effort is vain 

Its roots, stem, or branches to trace, 



DAY-DREAMS. 45 

With the original 
So identical, 

In all that to matter pertains, 
That, through the whole course 
Of time, its first force, 

Its like to produce, still remains. 

But the unity 

Of plan, which we see 

Pervading the brain, as its soul, 
Is itself alone 
The best proof, that one 

Is maker and lord of the whole. 

'Tis true that men may 
Right, good, truth betray, 

All trusts moral, social, divine ; 
For the selfish heart, 
Of man's nature part, 

Will with reptile vigour entwine 



£6 DAY-DREAMS, 

Its prey, and it hold 
In its serpent fold, 

And then the cold intellect send, 
With sophistry strong, 
In battle for wrong, 

'Fore conscience its course to defend. 

Or "self may absorb 
All passions — that orb 

Of darkness round which circuit all — - 
Love, hope, feeling, fear, 
In their orbit drear, 

Isolate, deaf to duty's calh 

Then, as habits grow 
By exercise, so 

Impressions repeated lose power : 
Thus habits of ill 
Gain force ; the bad will, 

More hold, deeper roots ev'ry hour. 



DAY-DREAMS. 47 

And truth's cutting blade, 
That once deep wounds made, 

On minds newly startled by crime, 
Cuts less and less deep, 
As men tread the steep, 

And slippery sin-ways of time. 

But 'mid stars that peep 
Through yon azure deep : 

Mid vast systems of worlds, that throng 
The blue fields of air, 
Is no star world there, 

Where right ever triumphs o'er wrong? 

In man's soul inwrought 
Are whole realms of thought, 

In the progress of things unrolled ; 
Time's favouring gale 
Expends each white sail, 

And new worlds new wonders unfold. 



48 DAY-DREAMS. 

And as knowledge grows 

In the soul, and flows, [streams ; 

Through wide nations, in broad, deep 
Fierce monsters, which lie 
In dark caverns, fly, 

Nor henceforward disturb our dreams. 

For, like dew-drops caught 
By a hoar-frost, thought 

Brilliant, plausible strikes the mind; 
But when the bright sun 
Hath his race begun, 

No trace of its beauty we find : 

But the melting power 
Of Sol's fiercest hour 

Cannot wear the firm rock of truth, 
High as heaven, broad-based, 
It defies the waste 

Of old Time's all-devouring tooth. 



DAY-DREAMS. 49 



PART III. 



The wish, that of the living whole 
No life may fail beyond the grave,— 
Derives it not from what we have 

The likest God, within the soul ? 

Are God and nature then at strife, 
That nature lends such evil dreams ? 

— In Memoeiam. 



All laws seem to tend 
To good as their end : 

All contrivance — the eye, solar sphere, 
Brain, bone, muscle, joint 
And nerve — seems to point 

To this — all to gravitate here. 

E 



50 DAY-DREAMS. 

How perfect the skill 
To enable the will 

To reach our frame's sentient extreme J 
How wondrous the art, 
Which moulds so the heart, 

That, unaided by will, the rich stream, 

With its pulse beat strong, 
Pours ever along, 

Repairing, each moment, the waste 
The system sustains : 
The delicate veins, 

'Mid network of nerves, interlaced, 

Returning the flood 
Of the damaged blood 

To tissues so subtilely thin, 
That the inhaled air 
The waste may repair, 

And the blood its oft circuit begin. 



DAY-DREAMS. 51 

How wondrous the eye! 
Its sphericity, 

Coats, lens, crystal humours contrived 
To paint on the nerve, 
Outspread to receive, 

Like a mirror, the impress derived 

From outward things, which 

The eye doth not touch, [convey, 

Yet which, through bent lightbeams, 
Along the live nerve, 
Impressions that serve 

The image of things to portray, 

To the indwelling mind, 
In nerve-folds confined, 

Yet scanning the infinite sky, 
Whose bright star-lamps strew 
The unbounded blue, 

As seen through her telescope eye. 



52 DAY-DREAMS. 

But though in detail 
So wondrous, all fail 

In grand final issue — the soul : 
And yet, 'tis poor art 
Which perfects the part, 

But fails to accomplish a whole. 

Do things hither tend ? 
And is this the end, 

Involved in such outlay of means ? 
Did Godhead propose 
No worthier close* 

To life's drama, than reason here gleans, 

Some sheaves or rich ears, 
Bright days, perhaps years, 

To one, more; to another, less; 
But, through her wide fields, 
To no man life yields 

A full crop of clear happiness. 

♦Appendix J. 



DAY-DREAMS. 53 

Who questions this truth ? 
Yet can the fair earth, 

In springtide of beauty and song, 
In mantle of green 
And sunlight, serene, P on g 

Rich, azure-dowed, balm-breath'd, be- 
To failure of end, 
Where beauties so blend, 

As if this sole earth were the care 
Undivided of God, 
Not the Universe broad, 

With its fretwork of systems up there? 

Yet how brief the bliss, 

Which flows from e'en this ! [care, 

How frail, when gaunt want or grim 
Doubts, fears, or disease 
On their victims seize, 

Or grief, to the depths of despair ! 



54 DAY-DREAMS. 

But is there no spot, 
In the infinite, 

Where hope never dies in the breast : 
No green, gladsome isle, 
Where life's pilgrims smile, 

And charm their time-sorrows to rest ? 

Where, like a sweet dream, 

In soft, silvery stream, [flow ; 

Thoughts mellowed with peace gently 
Now gorgeous attired 
Thoughts, words half-inspired, 

With emotion, rapt, kindling glow. 



DAY-DREAMS. 55 



PART IV. 



And because right is right, to follow right. » 

—CEnone, 



So runs my dream ; but what am I? 

An infant crying in the night, 

An infant crying for the light, 
And with no language but a cry. 

— In Mbmoriam. 



Were a future state 
So certain, that hate 

Itself could not question its truth ; 
And man's future lot, 
The reflex of what 

His sub-lunar life imaged forth ; 



56 DAY-DBEAMS* 

Then might virtue be 
Mere good policy, 

A paction with Heaven for pay : 
Wise abstinence here, 
For enjoyment there [weigh 

— Due product, where fear and hope 

This brief earthly span 
Of the life of man, 

Compared with the boundless career T 
Disclosed to his eye 
In eternity, 

With its future perennially clear : 

A tempered self4ove r 
Not greatness above 

The level or thought of reward 
— The homage of worth 
At the altar of truth, 

A holy, sublime disregard 



BAY-DREAMS. 57 

Of self, such as fires 
The soul which aspires 

To virtue, because it descries, 
With childlike delight, 
The beauty of right,* 

And loves goodness in every guise. 

The love mothers feel 
For their children's weal, 

So nobly oblivious of self, 
Asserting its power 
— An Eden-plucked flower — ■ 

In the breast of a Hagar or Guelph. 

To seek truth, as truth, 
And genuine worth, 

For itself, not because hope descries 
The meed, is, if God 
Be the' essence of good, 

The path on whose course worship lies. 

* Appendix K. 



58 DAY-DREAMS. 

Love, like verdant spring, 
Bright, beautiful thing, 

Steps forth from the winter of self; 
Yet, like the fair dawn 
On the poor man's lawn, 

Is too rich to be purchased by pelf. 

Pure love, like the root, 
Exists for the fruit, 

Content to lie hid from our view, 
Beneath the cold sod : 
The image of God, [through, 

Who, pervading all things through and 

Works ever the same, 
Unheeding of blame 

Or praise — like the stillness of night — - 
In the untrodden waste, 
And provinces vast 

And peopled, concealed from all sight. 



BAY-DREAMS. 59 

Pure love is the flower, 

That laughs when clouds lower, 

Expecting the soft vernal rains 
To ripen the seed, 
But takes little heed 

Of the ills her own beauty sustains : 

Or like the fair star, 
That shineth from far, 

When all things are buried in night ; 
But when the bright day, 
With worthier ray, 

Robes nature in vesture of light, 

So gently retires^ 
Till darkness requires 

Her aid, when she noiselessly steals 
Once more to her post 
Of duty, and lost 

To all selfish interest feels 



60 DAY-DREAMS. 

The pure joy of love ; 
But soon as, above 

The sky verge, orbed Luna is seen, 
She leaves night so fair, 
As best, to her care, 

And retires to the blue depths serene. 

But oh, can it be, 
That the majesty 

Of Heaven exults in the praise 
Of his creatures here, 
Or covets their prayer, 

For itself; 45 " as man loves displays, 

Which flatter his pride ? 
Is Godhead allied 

To the weakness of him he hath made, 
Or moved to do what 
He would otherwise not, 

By man's importunity swayed? 

* Appendix L. 



DAY-DREAMS. 61 

The thing we demand 
Is writ on the sand 

Or snow-drift, unless it forestall 
The action of God, 
On principles broad, 

Embracing the welfare of all. 

If free from regard 
To self, the reward, 

Which Godhead proposed, was the good, 
Through virtue, of man, 
— If mapped on life's plan — 

Then may we with reason conclude, 

That, if at our hands 
The God-head demands 

Praise, prayer, or aught else, 'tis because 
Such claim understood 
Subserves human good, 

That key to all God-given laws. 

F 



62 DAY-DREAMS. 

All worship is good, 
Which ministers food 

To the system, ennobles the soul ; 
To purpose adds force 
And depth ; on the course 

Of the passions exerts its control ; 

Lends patience, repose, 
And earnestness ; glows 

In the speech, on the lip, in the eye ; 
Lifts man above earth ; 
To time gives new worth, 

Mantling life with divinity. 

True worship effects 
Man's weal, and reflects 

Itself on the glass of the soul, 
And photographs there 
All images fair, 

Without the mind's conscious control. 



DAY-DREAMS. 63 

The outflowing love, 
Whose voice soars above 

Self-interest, seeking the good 
Of others, reacts 
On self, and extracts 

The sweets, which blind self-love elude. 

So mists, which arise 
And drape the blue skies 

' In garment of manifold grace, 
Flow hither again, 
In soft, genial rain, 

To wreathe into smiles nature's face. 

But worship* is not 

The words ; 'tis the thought, 

The reverence mute of the soul, 
The' Eolian's rich note, 
By nature's hand smote, 

Or ocean's long, deep, silent roll. 

* Appendix M. 



64 BAY-DREAMS. 

Or worship may be 
A life-loyalty 

To a principle, loved as a truths 
And hugged to the heart, 
— An integral part 

Of self — with the fervour of youth. 



DAY-DREAMS. 65 



PART V. 



A cry between the silences. 

— Whittieb. 



Who forged that other influence, 

That heat of inward evidence, 

By which he doubts against the sense ? 

—The Two Voices. 



Oh! mysterious mind, 
What art thou ? Confined 

In this prison house of dull clay, 
Thou liftest thine eye, 
With hope and a sigh 

To high heaven, for one assured ray 



66 DAY-DREAMS, 

Of God-given light, 

To illume the deep night, [tread, 

When cold, feline doubt, with soft 
And stealthy advance, 
Displays her barbed lance, [dread! 

New-startling the soul with vague 

Oh terrific power 

Of fell doubt's dark hour, [thought, 

When forced, like a wedge, by strong 
She sunders all ties, 
As if reveries 

Of childlife, on brain tissue wrought ; 

And forces our bark 
Adrift, on the dark, 

Stormy, foam-crested depths to roll, 
With few gleams of light, 
Athwart the deep night, 

Faintly indexing some dim goal, 



DAY-DREAMS. 67 

If goal that may be, 
Which no eye can see, 

By visual power to man given ; 
Where all efforts fail 
To pierce the deep veil [ven. 

Of darkness, which curtains whole Hea- 

Great God, what's the end 
Of all ? Whither tend 

This being and system of things ? 
Is life a mere breath 
—No more — and doth death, 

With withering touch, sere the wings 

Of hope ? And the grave 
His dark banner wave 

O'er life, and are all things forgot — 
Hopes, purposes, fears, 
Joy, laughter, and tears, 

Past all, as if things that were not ? 



68 DAY-DREAMS. 

In the abyss of time, 
Engulphed the sublime 

And soaring ambitions of earth, 
And life's prudent schemes ; 
And Hope's golden dreams ; 

Thoughts base, or of generous worth ? 

And doth the cold grave 
Close over the knave, 

The good, and the wise, and the great 
Alike ; and time's flood, 
By fiat of God, 

Whelm all, by one horrible fate, 

In the dreary sea 
Of nonentity, 

In the silence of dreamless night, 
Where the dullard ear 
Of death doth not hear, 

And each clay-cold orb, reft of sight, 



DAY-DREAMS. 69 

Is a mere earth's dust, 
In the wreck and rust 

Of all earthly and astral things ; 
And, they sparkle not 
With life's glowing thought ; 

For Hope never touches the strings 

Of the human lyre ; 
And the lambent fire 

• Of fancy enkindles no flame ; 
But rank weeds, and cold, 
Earthy-smelling mould 

The fierce triumph of death proclaim. 

And the worms, that crawl 

Through that vacant hall, [supreme, 

Where thought once enthroned sat 
Their evidence bear, 
That the dust down there 

Is disturbed by no Memory's dream : 



70 



DAY-DREAMS, 



And the mould that falls 
From the crumbling walls 

Of this masonry — work of God — 
Seems mere vulgar earth 
Void of judgment, worth, 

Or spirit — a plain common clod. 

But oh, can it be, 
That eternally 

The great human spirit, oppressed 
By the passive might 
Of cold, starless night, 

Shall in the dark sepulchre rest ; . 

And no more look on 

The great glorious sun, [grew, 

Or this earth, where fond memories 
Or the stars at night, 
So serene and bright, 

In their depths of perennial blue ? 



DAY-DREAMS. 71 

And yet, if time must 
This vitalized dust, 

By affinity's laws, dissolve : 
Must death too control 
The great moving soul, 

And mind — the great problem — resolve, 

As tho' a result, 
By process occult, 

- Of matter, the all-parent root, 
From which subtile thought, 
Hopes, memories fraught 

With sorrows or joys, upward shoot. 

The thing that we are 
We know not : the far, 

The wondrous, the high, the profound 
We reach ; but the mind, 
The essence enshrined 

Within us, what plummet can sound ! 



72 BAY-DREAMS. 

All physical things, 

Their wheels, movements, springs, 

We grasp — all mechanical skill ; 
The laws, whose combined 
Force regulates mind ; 

The motives, which underlie will, 

And shape the career 
Of Peasant and Peer, 

For good or for ill, as the soul — 
Strong, weak, coarse, refined 
By birth — is inclined, 

And bent by time's iron control. 

On the boundless sea 
Of eternity, 

The frail bark of our life appears, 
But where are we : what 
Our heaven doomed lot, [fears. 

The end of those griefs, joys, hopes, 



DAY-DREAMS. 73 

Do they all end here ? 
To this nether sphere 

Are we chained — to this Titan's rock? 
Is this wondrous life, 
With thoughts earnest rife, [mock? 

A thing doomed but high hopes to 

Is there no lone star 
In the distant far, 

. 'Mid yon boundless blue, to man given, 
By whose clear, fixed ray, 
To steer his dark way, 

And pilot his vessel toward heaven ? 

In the God-formed plan 

Doth no rainbow span 

The broad ocean, which separates time 

From eternity : 

Is all shoreless sea, 

Ceaseless, fathomless, pathless, sublime ? 
a 



74 DAY-DREAMS, 



PART VI, 



In Being's floods, in Action's storm, 

I walk and work in endless motion, 

Birth and death an infinite ocean, 

A constant weaving 

With change still rife, 

A restless heaving 

A glowing life. 

Thus time's whizzing loom unceasing I ply, 

And weave the life-garment of Diety. 

— Goethe. 



That mind is, we know : 
In this faith we grow, 

As the opening thoughts expand : 
The child, youth and man 
Of deep science can 

All on this solid platform stand. 



DAY-DREAMS. 75 

But is it so plain 

Of proof, that the brain, 

In whose magical folds confined 
Thought lives, as in wire 
Electric winged fire, 

Exists independent of mind. 

Yet shall we conclude 

That matter, which — viewed 

By reason — seems muffled in night, 
Eternal shall be, 
Whilst mind — the true we — ■ 

In the dimness of matter more bright, 

Is destined no more 
On Hope's wings to soar 

— Once passed the time-empire of sight— ■ 
A star, that erst shone 
Its brief hour, hence gone, 

Snuffed out into uttermost night. 



76 DAY-DREAMS. 

And as the sweet scent, 
In a rosebud pent, 

Exhales and is lost on the blast. 
So, when this poor guise 
Is withered, thought dies, 

A wreck on the shores of the past. 

But what, if the mind, 
By law sense-confined, 

In time, 'neath this stratum of stars, 
Secretes by her spell 
This fair, wondrous shell 

Self substanced, till, bursting the bars 

Of Chrysalis time, 

Free, joyous, sublime, [light, 

She mounts the blue space, winged with 
Where, deep in the soul, 
Is mirrored the whole, 

As in a calm lake the pure night, 



DAY-DREAMS. 77 

With each starry gem 
Of her diadem, 

Shining up through the blue serene ; 
Whilst the moon so fair, 
In the depths down there, 

Rides through her domains like a queen. 

And what, if the whole 

Are things of the soul, [nished skies, 

This frame, earth, bright moon, gar- 
If, from the ^reat sun 
Of Spirit, are spun 

All systems, which gravity ties 

To their focal source, 
By a hidden force 

Mysterious, dynamic, unknown — 
A power that controls 
Each orb as it rolls, 

And links to the great central throne 

G* 



78 DAY-DREAMS. 

All seen and unseen ; 
What is, what has been ; 

The voids which all being embrace : 
The cold stars on high ; 
The deep earth-born sigh ; [space. 

The pulses, which throb through all 

Each magnetic thread 
Of the nerve-web, spread 

Throughout the wide system of things ; 
Life, force rushing on 
Through each ganglion, 

Star- centres of vast astral rings ; 

Whence filaments, spun 
Reticulate, run, 

Embracing all systems of space — 
Now, the dew-drop soft; 
Now, the star aloft ; 

Each special, each general case. 



DAY-DREAMS. 79 

The grass blade scarce seen 

In its sheath of green, [fanned, 

The rose-leaf, by morning's breath 
Are spun in one woof 
With the starlit roof 

Of Heaven. Each atom of sand, 

Its shape, place, and course 
Are ruled by a force 

All potent, as that which controls 
The wild storm-lashed sea, 
In its agony, 

Or earth on her planet path rolls. 

When the dew-drops shine, 
On each sunlit line 

Of gossamer network, on sod 
Of emerald green, 
In the morning's sheen, 

'Tis a miniature sky work of God. 



80 DAY-DREAMS. 

On each dew-starred thread, 
Self substanced, self spread, 

Arachne the slightest touch feels ; 
On Heaven built lines, 
To suit her designs, 

The shock travels on lightning wheels. 

Thus, back to the Brain 
Of Being, may pain, 

Pleasure, evil and good, be conveyed ; 
And, writ in the broad 
Time's annals of God, 

'Mongst the archives of Heaven belaid, 

With his countless waves, 
Time's great ocean laves 

The vast shores of remotest space, 
And with careless hand, 
On the shifting sand, 

Graves the history of each race. 



DAY-DREAMS. 81 

The Lily, fair queen, 
From her couch of green, 

Floats on the blue wave, like a swan, 
Nor seems she to grow 
From the depths below, 

But free on the surge. So the wan, 

Fair child of the sun, 

Like a vestal nun, [ s ky, 

Chaste Luna rides through the flecked 
Unchecked, unconfined, 
As, rayed from the mind, 

A beam of the soul's poetry. 

Thus the storms, which hate, 
Hope, fear, love, create, 

Uncertain appear as the wind ; 
So, on the light's beam, 
The sun-mote may seem 

To drift, like a dream, unconfined :* 

* Appendix N. 



82 DAY-DREAMS. 

Arachne how oft, 
In the twilight soft, 

Seems poised in mid air, yet some tie- 
Holds spider, moon, mote, 
All known, near, remote, 

From mind to yon azure-domed sky. 

The vast, pulsing heart 
Felt through ev'ry part, 

Welling life from the beating brain, 
Forces throbbing seas 
Through all arteries 

Of the great universal frame. 

The atoms that float 
On light rays, remote 

On the outskirts of being, afar 
In those depths of blue, 
Feel each pulse beat true, 

As night's nearest and mightiest star 



DAY-DREAMS. 83 



PART VII. 



Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be 
severed ; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end pre- 
exists in the means, the fruit in the seed. 

—Emerson. 



In the heavens, on earth, 
Effects owe their birth 

To causes, whose sovereign sway, 
The comet, that flies 
Athwart the blue skies, 

And mind's faintest fancies obey. 



84 DAY-DREAMS. 

Each future result 
To some germ occult, 

In the lap of great nature sown, 
Its parentage owes ; 
And when the soul glows 

With hopes warm, or inly we groan ; 

Each throb has its cause 
In those primary laws, 

Which govern all matter, heart, mind : 
The life, motives, will, 
All good as all ill, 

In that embryo germ enshined. 

The soft blushing rose 
From a seed-germ grows ; 

Its sweet perfume, fair form, rich hues, 
Are things in due course, 
Where, by inborn force, 

The present the past but renews. 



DAY-DREAMS. 85 

But though we may change 
Its colors, arrange 

Its leaflets, to suit some new taste : 
Yet no special clause, 
But broad changeless laws, 

Have each hue as each form embraced. 

Effects spring from cause : 
Defects have their laws : 

No lusus naturcB is known : 
From adequate force 
All follows, of course, 

The fall of a leaf or a throne. 

All true seers, who look 
Into nature's book, 

And study the archives of God, 
In her pages see 
Only harmony ; 

For never, through orbit untrod, 

H 



86 DAY-DREAMS. 

Shoots comet or star, 
In defiant war 

With law, the expression of cause : 
In the statute book 
Of whole Heaven, you look, 

In vain, for exceptional clause. 

In the empire of mind 
And matter— defined 

As within or without the soul- — 
Through time's rolling years, 
No outlaw appears, 

Which owns not her iron control. 

Birth, death; health, decay 
Succeed, as the day 

Is followed by sable-winged night : 
The heart-pulse, that last 
Throbbed strong, in the past 

Had its cause and time fixed, and might. 



DAY-DREAMS. 87 

The atoms that dance 
In sunbeams ; the glance 

Of rapture that beams in the eye ; 
The thought that light strews 
O'er life, and indues 

Common things with sublimity, 

Are fixed, as that night 
Shall yield to the light, 

• When morning in glorious' array, 
And, wafted on wings 
Of light, poeans sings 

To the advent of new-born day. 

The javelin's flight 
Depends on the might 

Of the hurling force ; so the range 
Of thought, the soul's view 
Of being, is due 

To impact on mind ; and all change 



88 DAY-DREAMS. 

In the astral sphere, 
In the soul's career, 

In the hue of a thought of the mind, 
Is cause-bound, not free, 
A necessity 

On the map of all being defined. 

As plants from seeds grow, 
So like results flow 

From like causes, perennially sure, 
Men's acts are the fruit 
Of mind the fixed root, 

By circumstance fed — pure, impure, 

Or mixed ; as the blind 

Desires, — unconfined [ed, 

To the end of their being — are school- 
'Neath proper control, 
To act for the whole, 

Of which they are parts ; or misruled 



BAT-DREAMS. 

By notions of right, 
Bred in the soul's night, 

When duties are less understood ; 
Or when we let free 
One propensity, 

To act for its own private good, 

Devoid of regard 
To nature's award, 

The issue of good to the soul, 
If mind, to self true 
And all, keeps in view 

The harmony of the great whole. 

In every effect 

Full cause we detect, 

Or ought to, not greater nor less : 
By connatal laws, 
Surplusage of cause 

Must gender result in excess. 



90 DAY-DREAMS. 

E'en the prayer we breathe, 
— Like a scented wreath 

Of violets plucked in the dew — 
Exhales from the mind — 
— Wish, will, word — defined, 

As clear as their petals deep blue. 

All being is cause 

And consequence;* laws 

Are but the expression of force, 
Propelling the sphere 
Of light, the warm tear, 

The joy-throb and pang of remorse. 

Man acts not without 
A motive ; throughout 

Wide being, the strongest bears rule ; 
But motives bud forth, 
The mind's normal growth, 

Developed in life's shaping school. 

* Appendix 0. 



DAY-DREAMS. 91 

In causation's chain, 
Some links may remain 

Unseen, thro' the mind's murky haze ; 
Yet, subtile as air, 
The links are all there, 

Tho' concealed from our steadiest gaze. 



92 PAY-DRBAMS. 



PART VIII. 



Are they not souls rendered visible ; in bodies that took shape 
and will lose it, melting into air. Their solid pavement is a picture 
of the sense ; they walk on the bosom of nothing, blank time is 
behind and before them. 

— Carltlb. 



Is life, then, a dream, 
And do things but seem, 

In this world, in yon star-strewn sky : 
Is the universe, fraught 
With wonders, inwrought 

In the network of the mind's eye. 



DAY-DREAMS. 93 

And is niind the glass, 
On which, by a pass 

Of the great mesnierizer's hand, 
Is mirrored each scene, 
Blue skies and fields green, 

The wonders of air, sea, and land. 

Then, are we not men, 
But spirits, whose ken, 

Thro' Fancy's kaleidoscope, views 
This pageant of time, 
Which, sad, gay, sublime, 

With blossoms of beauty life strews. 

In dreams, we behold 
Like wonders unrolled ; 

A whole fairy land, peopled with bright 
Creations of thought, 
By phantasy wrought, 

On mind's canvass, with pencil of light. 



94 DAY-DREAMS. 

We ask, can it be 

A dream, when we see,* 

And handle, compare sense with sense ; 
Their evidence weigh, 
In this twilight grey 

Of mind, with emotion intense. 

We see friends and foes: 
The time-battle glows 

With earnestness, and the full tide 
Of manifold life 
Pours onward ; and rife [stride, 

With thoughts glowing, and bold giant 

Hope, as in life's plan, 
Springs on to the van, 

Whilst Effort moves slow in the rear, 
And Mind coldly weighs, 
And Piety prays, 

And Sympathy sheds the warm tear. 

*Appenlix P. 



DAY-DREAMS. 95 

All so life-like seems, 

And true, that those dreams 

Of broad, stirring day scarce excel, 
In painting or power, 
The still midnight hour, 

When fancy o'er mind weaves her spell. 

We sorrow, joy, hope ; 
Through mind's darkness, grope 

Our way into nebulous light, ' 
Or no light, or day, 
As thought's struggling ray 

Opens up the dim realms of night. 

We think, will, and act, 

And reason from fact, [store : 

Drawn from memory's long treasured 
Nay, Time's curtain rend, 
By mind's force, and wend 

Our way to eternity's shore. 



96 DAT -DREAMS. 

'Tis true, life's a dream 
More calm, that the beam 

Soul-kindled more vividly burns, 
With steadier light, 
Dissolving dim night, 

Which mind, by her alchemy, turns 

To broad, stirring day, 
With clear, golden ray 

Of sunlight, green fields, azure sky, 
Woods, streams, mountains, seas, 
Sweet flowers, balmy breeze, [fly. 

With creatures that crawl, swim, walk, 

There are who,* of mould 
Abnormal, behold 

Strange visions with mind's open eye ; 
Who, spurning the bars 
Of sense, to the stars, 

Through soul-gendered firmaments, fly. 

* Appendix Q. 



DAY-DREAMS. 97 

And, with ravished ear, 
In planet lands hear 

Spirits' converse on Heaven's design, 
Expounding each clause 
Of those wondrous laws 

Of the great primal source Divine. 

There are too, who see,* 
In vacuity, 

Clear visions with calm, steady gaze : 
Thought painting on space 
Yoid, sunlit, each face, 

As seen in reality's blaze. 

In the clear, full light, 
Stands the image bright 

Of each object, in bold relief: 
To their sense-warped view, 
All so lifelike, true, 

As to gender in many belief, 

* Appendix R. I 



98 DAY-DREAMS. 

That the phantom, thought, 
On fine nerve-woof wrought, 

Or by fancy from elf-land lured, 
Is no spectral lie, 
But true entity, 

By sight to reality moored. 

What paints the blue sky ? 
The light, mind, or eye ?* 

What silvers the moth's satin wings ? 
Or, over yon wold, 
A mantle of gold 

And green, in rich harmony, flings. 

One holding a cup, 
Is ordered to sup 

Plain water, to milk changed at will 
He looks : to the sight 
Most plainly 'tis white. 

He drinks and 'tis clearly milk still. 

* Appendix S. 



DAY-DREAMS. 99 

1 Nay, but it is wine : 
Its particles shine, 

'Tis genuine blood of tlie grape : 
But taste it :' ' Ah, yes ; 
'Tis wine, I confess.' 

Nor can lie conviction escape. 

Thus matter we find 
Transmuted by mind ; 

■ The muscles too seemingly dead, 
Or sinewed with might : 
Hence iron is light, 

A feather more weighty than* lead. 

And though we behold, 
Thro' portals of gold, 

Great Phoebus ascend, onward roll, 
And, through the expanse 
Of blue Heaven, advance, 

With full orb, to his western goal : 

* Appendix T. 



100 HAY-DREAMS. 

Yet science denies 
Its truth, and descries 

A fixed sun and revolving earth : 
Yet not fixed — thro' space 
He pursues his race, 

'Mid bright stars of coeval (?) birth ; 

Brother orbs that lie, 
One vast family, 

From this sun to the utmost bound 
Of our firmament — 
Glorious star-lit tent, 

Azure-domed in the vast profound. 

Swift careering on, 
Round some central sun,* 

In their ceaseless, unerring race : 
Glorious galaxy, 
On a crystal sea, 

Islet stars, in void, silent space, 

* Appendix U. 



DAY-BREAMS. 101 

Yet, when viewed afar, 
From some outskirt star, 

This firmament star-spangled bright, 
Seems there but a speck, 
Or dull milky streak, 

Sunk in depths of dim-curtained night : 

While to us their skies, 
Where suns countless rise, 

In the deep empyreal blue, 
Seem mere tiny dots, 
Mapped on star charts — blots 

Of faint light, to our flesh-dimmed view. 

In a mirror true, 
All objects we view, 

Reflected, seem real ; endued 
With mind, motion, will, 
Or breathless and still, 

Round, angular, pale, rosy-hued, 



102 DAY-DREAMS. 

As in life. The eye 
Enkindles ; the sky 

Is bright : on its bosom clouds float — 
White isles on a sea 
Of azure — each tree 

Is robed in its own leafy coat. 

There too imaged lie 
The earth and the sky, 

Created by sense, swift as thought, 
From nothing, on space, 
Into form and grace ; 

On the image-glass of the soul wrought. 

In the realms of art 
And nature, each part 

Shews perfect — each answers to each— 
The vase, statue, bell 
Or rich, pearly shell, 

Fair lily and fleshy-cheeked peach. 



DAY-DREAMS. 103 

The soul's wild distress 
The features express, 

And manifold thoughts, hopes, and joys : 
Yet all are writ there, 
Hope, anger, despair, 

With a pen which truth only employs. 

And the thoughts that speak 
Thro' the blushing cheek, 

And hopes which soft glances inspire, 
And the lightning flash 
'Neath the eye's dark lash, [ire. 

And black clouded brow charged with 

And the lids that tell 
The soul's tale so well, 

Or which scorn to shed the soft tear, 
And each lock of hair, 
On the forehead fair, 

With its shadow, stand visibly clear 



104 DAY-DREAMS. 

Yet 'tis a dream's dream, 
The whole : things but seem 

To be, move, or act : for on air, 
By soft sunbeams writ, 
The thin phantoms flit — ■ 

The figments of thought not more rare. 

Thus mind builds a globe, 
Throws o'er it a robe 

Of grey twilight or rosy day, 
With blue bending skies, 
Now, starred with bright eyes, 

Peering down with pure sparkling ray. 

Now flooding with light 

The wide realms of night, [eyes. 

The bright, twinkling stars shut their 
And, dazzled away 
From contest with day, 

For the empire of beauty, night flies. 



DAY-DREAMS. 105 

And rosy-cheeked morn, 
Of light and love born, 

She teaches to kiss the gay flowers ; 
And the sparkling dew, 
Bright stars which earth strew, 

To sip, in the soft vernal hours. 

At her nod, morn bends 

Her fair form : descends [air, 

With haste, from her cloud throne of 
And pours golden light 
From the mountain's height, 

On earth's forests and tower tops fair. 

Then visits each vale, 
Where soft warblers hail 

Her approach, with sweet matin song : 
The lark shakes his wings, 
Mounts high heaven and sings, 

With voice at once tuneful and strong. 



106 DAY-DREAMS. 

The daisy — day's eye — 
So pretty and shy, 

Plue pimpernel, marigold bright, 
Whose lids closed, when day 
Paled her sparkling ray, 

Now ope them again to the light. 

From those golden beams, 

Which, like hope's young dreams, [drew 

Oft tremble round cloud-skirts, she 
Her colours, .to tip 
The daffodil's lip ; 

From sky too, the violet's blue. 

Thus morn lays the scene, 
In ground-work of green, 

The fields, trees and ivy-clad tower, 
And dipping her beams 
In beauty's rich streams, 

With pencil of light draws each flower. 



DAY-DREAMS. 107 

The snow- drop the snow 
Outrivals ; the glow 

Of sunset can scarcely outvie 
The dew-spangled rose, 
When morning's breath blows, 

But in darkness their beauties all die. 

For all things to sight 
One dress wear at night, 

Rose, snow-drop, blue sea, sober pond : 
But, as if charmed things, 
All loveliness springs 

At one wave of her magic wand. 

Such tricks ev'iy day 
Coy Fancy doth play 

— That strange Maja* of Eastern brains— 
'Tis God paints each scene, 
What is, what has been, 

And deep in the mind it ingrains. 

* Appendix V. 



108 DAY-DREAMS. 

Yet the human soul 
Is no mere blank scroll, 

Where fancy may write what she wills. 
Each faculty, sense, 
Force, feeling intense, 

Stands immovable as the hills. 

This wonder-fraught earth, 
Land of tears, hopes, and mirth, 

« — Thing of fancy, on sunbeams hung— 
She wraps in cloud-robe, 
And spins round a globe 

Light-raying, — itself likewise swung 

Somewhere in the blue, 
Its race to pursue, 

By centrifugal power hurled on, 
In its astral course. 
By attractive force, 

Whirled round its own gorgeous sun. 



DAY-DREAMS. 109 

With its galaxy 

Of dim stars, which lie 

Strata thick upon strata piled, 
In the vast profound, 
Which no eye can sound, 

Where even conjecture seems wild. 

In eddying whirls, 

Worlds heaped upon worlds, 

Thick as leaves in the' autumnal blast, 
Or as snow-flakes fly, 
In a wintry sky, 

When whole Heaven seems overcast, 

Down, down in the deep, 
Where cease not nor sleep 

The wonders or works of the All-wise, 
Whom not the Infinite 
Can exhaust, and yet 

He mouldeth the Butterfly's eyes. 



110 DAY-DREAMS. 

Up, up in the sky, 

Where star systems fly, [march 

East, west, north, south, far as thoughts 
Until, in despair, 
We sink, for e'en there, 

The circles of things but enlarge. 



As light with her hues 
All objects indues, 

And on the dark cloud hangs her bow : 
So life spans the earth 
With beauty and worth, 

Enzoning with grace all below. 



DAY-DREAMS. Ill 

Life diversifies 
Herself: multiplies 

Into countless shapes, shades, and things, 
Her being : is born 
A rosebud, at morn ; 

At eve, a plumed nightingale, sings. 

One while, in a dress 

Of strange loveliness, [trothed, 

She lifts her chaste brow Spring-be- 
A snow drop, with glow 
Outvieing the snow, 

A bride, in sweet innocence clothed. 

Now, shy in the shade, 
By the cool cascade, 

A primrose or violet blue : 
Now, throned like a queen, 
A rose-bud, scarce seen 

In mantle of moss, starred with dew. 



112 DAY-DREAMS. 

As stem, leaves and root, 
Fair flowers and rich fruit, 

One embryo plant-life enfolds: 
So, like a vast sun 
All-raging, life one 

Earth's wondrous variety holds. 

The life 'tis, that moulds 
The lily, unfolds 

The soft germ, develops the leaves, 
Paints, with pearly light, 
The rich petals white, 

And veins with sweet scent interweaves, 

The life 'tis, that gilds 
The crocus ; that builds 

The smooth mushroom and gnarly oak ; 
And rears to the sky, 
Tall pines that defy, 

Yet court too, the lightning's fell stroke, 



DAY-DREAMS. 113 

A Proteus in skill, 
Is all things at will, 

Unfolding itself every hour, 
In some aspect new 
Of fair form and hue, [er. 

Tall tree, humble grass, perfumed flow- 
As a crystal broke, 
By a ruthless stroke, 

Into glittering fragments flies ; 
Each separate part 
Hath its Iris heart, 

And rich veins of prismatic dyes. 

As perfect and clear, 

As a rounded tear 

Is an ocean distinct and whole : 

So each life whole, one, 

From one life is spun, 

A beam rayed from the central soul, 
j* 



114 DAY-DREAMS. 

And life neither tires 
Nor rests, but aspires 

Still on, in her glorious career 
Of progress, whose car 
Rolls sure as a star,* [or clear. 

Though as slow, through skies cloudy 

As when a page, bright 
With truth's glowing light, 

Yields up its full store to the soul, 
Its periods possess 
No truth or thought less, [whole, 

Though its students exhaust each the 

Or when the brain teems 
With phantasy's dreams, 

Flung random, like sparks on the wind T 
Or reason outpours 
Her purified ores, 

Strained through the Alembic of mind. 

Appendix V. 



DAY-DREAMS- 115 

The brain loses naught 
Of fancy, or thought, 

Or wisdom, or feeling, or force ; 
Each dream, passion, view, 
Rolls on ever new, [source. 

Welled up from the thoughts' fertile 

So life, fresh as morn 
On mountain tops born, 

Is flush as in spring's glorious bloom ; 
Or as, in her prime, 
When summoned by time, [tomb. 

She sprang from the cold dreamless 

As love, with soft eyes, 
A maiden's cheek dyes, 

And mantles in beauty her face ; 
Or when a grey mist, 
By a sunbeam kist, 

Is thrilled into many-hued grace. 



116 DAY-DREAMS. 

E'en so the great soul, 
Rich fount of the whole, 

Incarnates her own beauteous dreams ; 
Now curtains the sky 
With cloud drapery, 

Baptized in the Sun's glowing beams : 

Now mantles in green 
The earth still, serene, 

Or waving, gold-hued, in the wind ; 
Then melts into night 
All images bright, [mind. 

Dissolved through life's menstruum, 

And in the void, strewn 
With stars, hangs the moon, 

Sad pilgrim attendant of earth ; 
While each gem, that glows 
On night's girdle, owes, 

To her fashioning hand, its birth. 



DAT-DREAMS. 117 

She photographs all, 

The great as the small, [stars ; 

On Time's canvass — the mass of the 
The rainbow on high, 
And life-germs that lie 

Earth- prisoned, till nature unbars 

The portals, whence, rife , 
With energy, life 

Bursts forth into bud, blossom, fruit, 
Of thousand-fold shape 
And shade, — nut and grape, [root. 

Rose, snow-drop, hard grain, pulpy- 
She paints the wide scene 
With groundwork of green, 

The fields, trees, and ivy clad tower, 
And, dipping her beams 
In phantasy's streams, 

With pencil of light paints each flower. 



118 BAY-DREAMS. 

Mind touching the springs 

Of being, all things [hued, — 

Shoot up, through the voids, rainbow- 
Blue, golden, or green; 
Storm wrapped or serene, [as viewed, 

High, low, straight, bent, branching; 

Through the spectrum, sense, 
The Soul's medium, whence 

All substance material derives 
Its being, and guise 
Of shape, colour, size, [strives 

From whose presence the mind vainly 

To emancipate 
Itself, for, by fate 

Enfeebled, it sinks into sense, 
With her shifting views 
Of strange forms and hues, [lens. 

As seen through the mind's coloured 



DAY-DREAMS. 119 

From mind, vital root 

Of phenomena, shoot [mits gleam 

Trunk and branches, on whose sum- 
Star-blossoms, whence flies 
Pollen-dust, through all skies, [dream 

Earths, moons, — life's bright, beautiful 

Of being outspread, 
Soul-gendered and fed 

By fancy, which weaves the blue sky, 
And views the immense 
Voids sunless, thro' sense, 

The kaleidoscope of the mind's eye ; 

And spins, at our feet, 

Rose, pink, brier sweet, [beams dance. 

Through whose leaves the rich sun- 
Or poises, afar 
In dim night, the star, 

Outrolled on the boundless expanse. 



120 DAY-DREAMS. 

All, all imaged here — 

On the soul — the sphere [rings — 

Central, stellar — all worlds, moons, 
The germ and the tree, 
The drop and the sea, 

All astral, terrestrial things. 

As, thro' a stained glass, 
The rays coloured pass, 

Or as from rare media to dense, 
The light, by new force, 
Is bent from its course, 

As the angle inclines : so the sense 

On all known things acts, 
Paints objects, refracts, 

Diminishes, magnifies all, 
As curved lines enforce 
The light's changeful course, 

Thro' bodies, on which its rays fall. 



DAY-DREAMS. 121 

All knowledge is what 
Pure truth mind has got, 

From her own golden treasury stole : 
Bright, sterling, refined, 
The ingots of mind, 

Struck off at the mint of the soul. 

As a ray bent back 
From its onward track, 

Reflects but the things it has seen, 
So, when mind reveals 
New truths, she unseals [been. 

The crypt, where her jems have aye 

/Tis light lately shed 
On a page oft read ; 

A leaf of her volume just turned ; 
A new bud burst forth 
On the bosom of earth ; 

A passion unknown till it burned. 

K 



122 BAY-DREAMS. 

Through a prism rays seen, 
Blue, yellow, and green, 

In nature a white gleam diffuse, 
Hence pencils of bright 
And colourless light, 

Paint the mantle of things of all hues. 

And thus the soul rich 
In all beauties, which 

Encircle the low as the high, 
Breathes flowers and soft light, 
Or frowns storms and night, 

Or smiles hosts of stars thro' the sky. 

This picture of God, 
Hung up in the broad, 

Wondrous universe of the soul, 
Was by his pen drawn, 
Who spread the blue lawn 

Of deep ether, where cea seless roll 



DAY-DREAMS. 123 

Earths, moons, comets, stars — 
Nature's glorious cars 

Along the great railways of Heaven ; 
But what their freight, goal, 
— As parts, as a whole — [given ? 

Know we ? Hath such knowledge been 

When death comes, we shake 

Our chains off, awake [worth : 

From life's dream, by mind's native 
Our coils now unfold, 
By death snapped, and bold 

The disenthralled spirit steps forth. 

Scales drop from the eyes 
Of mind, and the guise, 

Which thought had assumed during life, 
Is shred — like a flower, 
By the scathing power [strife; 

Of winged lightning — thus ends the 



124 DAY-DREAMS. 

And as a balloon 
Springs upward, so soon 

As its cords have slipped their firm tie : 
So, springs the glad soul, 
Freed from time's control, 

With one bound, to its native sky. 

That sky which is near, 
Not far off; 'tis here, 

In the soul, not the soul in it ; 
And Soul hath not space, 
Nor needs it for base, 

A wide universe, or a point. 

All spirits might dwell 
In a cypris' shell, 

Whose very minuteness astounds, 
Feel free, as a fly 
In day's open sky, 

And roam through its infinite bound s. 



DAY-DREAMS. 125 



PART IX. 



" Has not a deeper meditation taught . . . that the Where 
and When, so mysteriously inseparable from all our thoughts, are 
but superficial terrestrial adhesions to thought ; that the Seer may 
discern them where they mount up out of the celestial Everywhere 

and Forever Think well, thou too wilt find that Space 

is but a mode of our human Sense, so likewise Time ; there is no 
Space and no Time ; We are — we know not what ; — light-sparkles 
floating in the aether of Deity ! 

" So that this so solid-seeming World, after all, were but an 
air-image, our Me the only reality : and Nature, with its thousand, 
fold production and destruction, but the reflex of our own inward 
Force, the ' phantasy of our Dream ;' or what the Earth-Spirit in 
Faust names it, the living visible Garment of God." 

— Carltle. 

What's space but a thought, 
In the sense-loom wrought, 

Inwove in the woof of the mind ; 
Each varying scene 
On life's glowing screen, 

By the pen of the spirit designed. 



126 DAY-DREAMS. 

The near and the far, 
The grass blade, the star, 

The boundless, the finite, the fair, 
The star-spangled blue, 
The ocean, the dew, 

And tempest and sunshine are there> 

Doth time, then, alone,* 
For ever rush on, 

To future from present and past : 
Or is she too thought, 
By sense subtly wrought, 

And on the mind's dial-plate glassed ; 

Whose hands each event 
— Great, little — present 

To view, on the chart of the soul ; 
Where, seen or unseen, 
They are and have been, 

Inscribed on her magical scroll 

* Appendix W. 



DAY-DREAMS. 127 

Which as we unfold, 
Time's story is told, 

With ink sympathetic ; and he, 
Who ventures to read 
Her secrets, hath need 

To study the soul's alchemy. 

A painting sublime, 

All-circling, is time, 

Here sunlit, there buried in clouds, 
In which the whole past 
For ever stands fast, 

The future night's curtain enshrouds ; 

And, stormy or fair, 
The present is there, 

In colours so clear and intense, 
That, dazzling the eye 
With their brilliancy, 

They seem real, not figments of sense. 



128 DAY-DREAMS. 

As, in midnight's hour, 
The telescope's power 

Adds firmaments star-strewn and vast, 
Where, to the mere eye, 
There seems but one sky, 

So, on the sense mirror, is glassed 

The present alone ; 
The future unknown, 

Still hid in the boundless expanse, 
The farseeing eye 
Of mind may descry, 

Unveiled by her telescope- glance. 

But, as we proceed 
Still onward, we read 

Fresh sibylline excerpts of fate : 
Discoveries new 
Unfolding to view 

New phases of mind's primal state. 



DAY-DREAMS. 129 

As when we behold 
A pale rim of gold, 

Suspended at even on high ; 
Night's beautiful queen 
Is there, as when seen 

Full orbed, in the blue, vaulted sky. 

As in voids remote 
Vast firmaments float, 

• Deep, deeper in widening space ; 
So, graved on mind's sky, 
Like star systems, lie 

The tableaux of Time's onward race. 

And far off and near 
Are evermore here : 

The pictures of time, one by one, 
Shew through the deep night — 
Illumed by the light, 

Like cloud-isles transpierced by the sun. 



130 DAY-DREAMS. 

Whilst things, in Time's womb r 
Are seen to assume 

A brilliancy breathing, intense ; 
The present, which glows 
So vividly, flows 

To memory, fading from sense. 

But still it is here : 
The wondrous career 

Of time, on her tragical scroll — 
Mapped out, first and last, — 
The great living past, 

And stereotyped on the soul. 

As autumn's brown leaf, 
Infolds the belief, 

That Time had once cradled with care, 
And nurtured with food 
It's life in the bud, 

And smoothed its pale folds to the air, 



DAY-DREAMS. 131 

And in its dark green, 
In suninier-day sheen, 

Oft nestled, and in the cool night ; 
Till marring its form, 
With grasp of the storm, 

He flung it to earth with fierce might 

And as its sere state 
Involves its past fate, 

The changes successive of life : 
So, in present thought 
The past is inwrought, 

. With manifold memories rife. 

Or, as in hoar hair, 

We feel, that oft there [rime, 

Time had passed, ere he scattered his 
And, in the shrunk face, 
Age-furrowed, we trace, 

The deeply-grooved wheel-tracks of time: 



132 DAY-DREAMS. 

And, as in those locks 
And furrows, the shocks 

Of time are unveiled to mind's eye ; 
Youth, manhood, and age, 
Like memory's page, 

Deep graved, with known histories lie. 

And whilst, on the brow 
Beholding the now, 

The past to infer were compelled ; 
So, may not life's whole 
Be stamped on the soul, 

The past in the present beheld. 

Thus is the immense 

A web of the sense, [wrought, 

Where matter, space, time are in- 
In hues dark as night, 
Or bright as the light, 

Or dim as the shadows of thought. 



DAY-DREAMS, 133 

In the soul is wrought 
The whole starry vault 

Of Heaven, the blue, bounding sea ; 
The fair bark, that rides 
On its surging tides, 

And Zephyr that laughs on the lea. 

The visage of night 

With its star-eyes bright ; 

The beauty of morning, inwrought 

On time's glowing stream, 

Is a lovely dream- 
All matter but crystallized thought. 

But as, in the green, 
Glorious ocean seen, 

An iceberg floats on in its might ; 
Cold, solid, and vast, 
Urged by the chill blast, 

But melts in day's southern light : 



134 DAY-DREAMS. 

So matter floats on, 
Earth, satellite, sun, 

Vast, ponderous, solid, when viewed 
Through life's medium, sense — - 
The soul's magic lens 

Concave-convex, prismatic, all-hued. 

But when, on this dream 
Of things, the pure beam 

Of reason looks in, and compels 
The mind to suspect 
All being time-decked, 

In soul-woven garb, it dispels 

The child-faith, which sense 
Clear, glowing, intense, 

Throws over the mind, thick as night ; 
Dissolving in doubt 
All matter, throughout 

The wide realms of touch and of sight. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX A. 



:i 'Tis thus at the roaring loom of time I ply, 
And weave for G-od the garment thou see'st him by." 

—Goethe, m Sartor Eesartus. 



APPENDIX B. 

** The Ichthyosaurus, sometimes more than 30 feet long, had the 
snout of a porpoise, the teeth of a crocodile, (sometimes amounting 
to 180), the head of a lizard, the vertebrse of a fish, the sternum of 

an ornithorhynchus, and the paddles of a whale Its 

eye was prodigiously large ; in one species, the orbital cavity being 
14 inches in its longest direction. This eye also, had a peculiar 
construction to make it operate both like a telescope and a micros- 
cope : thus enabling the animal to descry its prey in the night as 
well as day, and at great depths in the water. The length of its 
jaws was sometimes more than six feet ... its habits were 
carnivorous; its food, fishes and the young of its own species; 
some of which it must have swallowed of great length." — Hitch- 
cock's Geology. 



136 APPENDIX. 

" The scales, bones, and other remains, constantly found in the 
interior of the skeleton, prove that it was an inhabitant of the sea." 
— MantelVs Wonders of Geology. 



APPENDIX C. 

" The Pterodactyle had the head and neck of a bird, the mouth 
of a reptile, the wings of a bat, and the body and tail of a mammi- 
fer . . . its eyes were enormously large, so that it could seek 
its prey in the night." — Hitchcock. 

" With flocks of such-like creatures flying in the air, and shoals 
of no less monstrous ichthyosauri and plesiosauri swarming in the 
ocean, and gigantic crocodiles and tortoises crawling on the shores 
of the primceval lakes and rivers ; air, sea, and land must have been 
strangely tenanted in these early periods." — Buckland, in Hitch- 
cock. 



APPENDIX D. 

" The remains of men have not been found in any deposit older 
than alluvium, except in a few cases where they have been proba- 
bly introduced into drift subsequent to its deposition." — LyelVs 
principles in Hitchcock. 

" But not a trace of the triloblte has been discovered above the 
carboniferous strata." — Hitchcock. 

"Dr. Buckland estimates the total thickness of all the stratified 
rocks in Europe to be at least 10 miles." 

" In Pennsylvania, fossiliferous rocks beneath the top of the 
coal measures are more than 7.5 miles in thickness." — Rogers in 
Hitchcock. 

" The thickness in feet of the fossiliferous strata in Great Britain, 
as given in the tabular view of the stratified rocks, with the excep- 
tion of the Silurian and Cambrian systems, which I give on the 
authority of Professor Phillips, is as follows : 

Tertiary 2,000 feet, 

Chalk 1,100 do. 

Wealden 900 do. 

Oolite 2,000 do. 



APPENDIX. 137 

Lias 700 feet, 

Upper New Red 900 do. 

Lower New Red 800 do. 

Carboniferous System 5,700 do. 

Old Red Sandstone 10,000 do. 

Silurian Rocks 7,470 do. 

Cambrian Rocks 9,000 do. 

Total 40,570 feet; or 7% miles." 

— Hitchcock. 

In the Silurian rocks is found the Trilobite: not, until after the 
Tertiary, man. 



APPENDIX E. 

Who made man's eye, had he no skill to make 
Himself ten myriads, if in need he stood 
Of media, such as these, through which to view, 
At one wide glance, each spot of his domain ? 
Jla/os eye can rest on objects more than one, 
His mind embrace, in quick succession, all : 
Increase that power progressively; then pause; 
Say what might he not be, and thence infer, 
The vastness of GJ-od's attributes, &c. &c. 

Though we speak ordinarily of omnipotence and omniscience, 
yet perhaps nature only teaches us the vastness of the power in do- 
ing, and of apparent wisdom in adjusting means to ends, of the 
spirit of nature operating in the frame of man, the ganglion of the 
insect, or the stamen of a flower. But how can we fathom the in- 
finite ? Employed by us, are they not words of relative meaning ? 



APPENDIX F. 

For an account of the calculating machine, here referred to, see 
the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," and the argu- 
ment of the author. Also, the " Ninth Bridge water Treatise," by 
Mr. Babbage. 



138 APPENDIX- 



APPENDIX G. 

" The views which I, (says Sir Charles Lyell,) proposed origi- 
nally in the Principles of Geology, in opposition to thp theory of 
progressive development, may be thus briefly explained. From the 
earliest period at which plants and animals can be proved to have 
existed, there has been a continual change going on in the position 
of land and sea, accompanied by great fluctuations of climate. To 
these ever- varying geographical and climatal conditions, the state 
of the animate world has been unceasingly adapted. No satisfac- 
tory proof has yet been discovered of the gradual passage of the 
earth from a chaotic to a more habitable state, nor of a law of progres- 
sive development governing the extinction andrenovation of species, 
and causing the Fauna and Flora to pass from an embryonic to a 
more perfect condition, from a simple to a more complex organi- 
zation." — LyelVs Manual. 

"A multitude of facts show that the Deity introduced the 
different races just at the right time. That he did this according to 
certain laws, though not by their inherent force— for laws have no 
such force — may be admitted; as may be done in respect to all his 
operations ; but this does not prove them any the less special or 
miraculous. ... In short, we may consider it as proved that 
ail the great classes of animals and plants have been represented on 
the globe so near the commencement of organic life, that no geolo- 
gist will doubt that it was so from the very beginning."— Hitchcock. 

The Thecodont family of Reptiles is allied to the living Mono- 
tor, and its appearance in the Lower Permian, " observes Mr. Owen, 
is opposed to the doctrine of the progressive development of Rep- 
tiles from Fish, or from simpler to more complex forms; for, if they 
existed in the present day, these Monitors would take rank at the 
head of the Lacertian order." — Lyell, 

The author of the " Vestiges," however, says, — " The great fact 
established by Geology is, that the organic creation, as we now see 
it, was not placed upon the earth at once; — it observes a progress 
. . In reality, the whole of the geologists admit that we have, 
first, the remains of invertebrated animals : then with these, fish, 
being the lowest of the vertebrated ; next, reptiles and birds ', which 
occupy higher grades ; and finally, along with the rest, mammifers, 
the highest of all. 



APPENDIX- 139 

u In every classification of the animal kingdom, reptiles rank 
next above fish, in some living families there is such a conven- 
tion and intermixture of both characters, that naturalists cannot 
agree to which class they should be assigned. He actually sees, in 
a general view of the earlier reptiliferous formations, animals 
(Ichthyosaur,) combining the fish and the reptile in the most une- 
quivocal manner. 

" In Mr. Owen's Letters on the Invertebrated Animals, he says — 
that man's embryotic metamorphoses would not be less striking 
than those of the butterfly, if subjected like them to observation — 
and then adds, that the human embryo is first vermiform, next 
stamped with the characters of the apodal fish, afterwards indica- 
tive of the enaliosaur, and so forth. There is another most respec- 
table English physiologist — Dr. Roget — who, in his Bridgewater 
Treatise, explicitly says, ' that the animals which occupy the high- 
est stations in each series possess, at the commencement of their 
existence, forms exhibiting a marked resemblance to those presented 
in the permanent condition of the lowest animals of the same series ; 
and that, during the progress of their development, they assume in 
succession the characters of each tribe, corresponding to their con- 
secutive order in the ascending chain.' " Explanations of Ves- 
tiges, <&c. 

u Professor Owen, who last year pronounced that the footprints 
presented by Mr. Logan, were most probably those of a chelonian 
animal (turtle), not of a land species — a pronouncement which has 
a prominent place in the last edition of Sir Charles LyelPs Manual 
—read a paper on the 24th of last month before the Geological So- 
ciety, in which he reversed his former position, and professed his 
conviction that the footprints were those of animals possessing 
more then four feet — some eight or ten— consequently that they 
indicated invertebrate animals, most probably crustacean ! We ex- 
tract from the report in the Athen&um :— 

" 'The Professor proceeded to observe, that, from their peculiar 
arrangements, neither to a quadrupedal creature nor a fish-like ani« 
mal could these imprints be assigned ; and yet, with respect to the 
hypothesis that each imprint was made by its independent limb, I 
confess to much difficulty in conceiving how seven or eight pairs 
of jointed limbs could be aggregated in so short a space of the sides 
of the animal ; so that I incline to adopt as the most probable hypo- 



140 APPENDIX. 

thesis, that the creatures which have left these tracts and impres- 
sions on the most ancient of known sea-shores belonged to an ar- 
ticulate, and probably crustaceous, genus. With reference to the 
conjectures that might be formed respecting the creatures that have 
left these tracts, the Professor observed, that the imagination is 
baffled in the attempt to realize the extent of time passed since the 
period when these creatures were in being that moved upon the 
sandy shores of the Silurian sea, and we know that, with the excep- 
tion of the most microscopic forms, all the actual species of living 
beings disappear at a period geologically very recent in comparison 
with the Silurian epoch. The forms of animals present modifica- 
tions more and more strange and diverse from actual exemplars as 
we descend into the depths of time past. Of this the Plesiosaur 
and the Ichthyosaur are instances in the reptilian class, and the 
Pterichthys, Coccosteus, and Cephalaspis in the class of fishes. 
If then the vertebrate type has undergone such inconceivable modifi- 
cations during the secondary and Devonian periods, what may not 
have been the modifications of the articulate type during a period pro- 
bably more remote from the secondary period than this is from the 
present time ? ' " 



APPENDIX H. 

"M. Comte, of Paris, has made some approach to the verifica- 
tion of the hypothesis, by calculating what ought to have been the 
rotation of the solar mass at the successive times when its surface 
extended to the various planetary orbits. . . ' From th e whole 
of these comparisons,' says he, *I deduced the following general 
result : — supposing the mathematical limit of the oolar atmosphere 
successively extended to the regions where the different planets are 
now found, the duration of the sun's rotation was, at each of these 
epochs, sensibly equal to that of the actual sidereal revolution of the 
corresponding planet ; and the same is true for each planetary at- 
mosphere in relation to the different satellites.' " — Vestiges. 

The apparent retrogression of the satellites of Uranus presents the 
principal difficulty. For a full exposition of the solar-nebular 
theory, see "Vestiges." See also, " Nichol's Architecture of the 
Heavens," &c. 

" The following experiments were first conducted by Professor 
Plateau of Ghent, and afterwards repeated by Dr. Faraday. 



APPENDIX. 141 

m ' Placing a mixture of water and alcohol in a glass box and pour- 
ing thereon a small quantity of olive oil, of density precisely equal 
to the mixture, we hare in the latter a liquid mass relieved from 
the operation, of gravity y and free to take the exterior form given by 
the forces which may act upon it. In point of fact, the oil instantly 
takes a glooular form by virtue of molecular attraction. A vertical 
axis being introduced through the box, with a small disc upon it, 
so arranged that its centre is coincident with the centre of the globe 
of oil, we turn the axis at a slow rate, and thus set the oil sphere 
into rotation. ' We then presently see the sphere flatten at its 
poles and swell out at its equator, and we thus realize, on a small 
scale, an effect which is admitted to have taken place in the pla- 
nets. ' The spherifying forces are of different natures, — that of 
molecular attraction in the case of the oil, and of universal attrac- 
tion in that of the planet, but the results are analogous, if not iden- 
tical. < Quickening the rotation makes the figure more oblately 
spheroidal. When it comes to be so quick as two or three turns in 
a second, the liquid sphere first takes rapidly its maximum of flat- 
tening, then becomes hollow above and below, around the axis of 
rotation, stretching out continually in a horizontal direction, and, 
finally, abandoning the disc, is transformed into a perfectly regular 
ring? At first this remains connected with the disc by a thin 
pellicle of oil, but, on the disc being stopped, this breaks and disap - 
pears, and the ring becomes completely disengaged. The only 
observable difference between the latter and the rings of Saturn is, 
that it is rounded, instead of being flattened ; but this is accounted 
for in a satisfactory way. A little after the stoppage of the rotary 
motion of the disc, the ring of oil, losing its own motion, gathers 
once more into a sphere. If, however, a smaller disc be used, and 
its rotation continued after the separation of the ring, rotatory mo- 
tion and centrifugal force will be generated in the alcoholic fluid, and 
the oil ring, thus prevented from returning into the globular form, 
divides itself into i several isolated masses , each of which immediately 
takes the glooular form? These are almost always seen to assume, 
at the instant of their formation, a movement of rotation upon them- 
selves — a movement which constantly takes place in the same direc 
tion as that of the ring. Moreover, as the ring, at the instant of its 
rupture, had still a remainder of velocity, the spheres, to which it 
has given birth, tend to fly off at a tangent ; but as, on the other 
side, the disc, turning in the alcoholic liquor, has impressed on this 



142 



APPENDIX, 



a movement of rotation, the spheres are especially carried along by 
this last movement, and revolve for some time round the disc. Those 
which revolve at the same time upon themselves, consequently then 
present the curious spectacle of planets revolving at the same time 
on themselves and in their orbits. Finally, another very curious 
effect is also manifested in these circumstances : besides three of 
four large spheres into which the ring resolves itself, there are al- 
most always produced one or two very small ones, which may thus 
be compared to satellites. The experiment which we have thus 
described, presents as we see, an image in miniature of the forma- 
tion of the planets, according to the hypothesis of Laplace, by the 
rupture of the cosmical ring, attributable to the condensation of the 
solar atmosphere.' " — Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. 

" My starting point was a statement of the arrangements of the 
bodies of space, with a hypothesis respecting the mode in -which 
those arrangements had been effected. It is a mistake to suppose 
this (nebular) hypothesis essential, as the basis of the entire system 
of nature developed in my book. That basis lies in the material 
laws found to prevail throughout the universe, which explain why 
the masses of space are globular; why planets revolve round suns 
in elliptical orbits ; how their rates of speed are high in proportion 
to their nearness to the centre of attraction ; and so forth. In these 
laws arises the first powerful presumption that the formation and 
arrangements of the celestial bodies were brought about by the 
Divine will, acting in the manner of a fixed order or laiv, instead of 
any mode which we conceive of as more arbitrary. It is a presump- 
tion which an enlightened mind is altogether unable to resist, when 
it sees that precisely similar effects are every day produced by law 
on a small scale, as when a drop of water spherifies, when the re- 
volving hoop bulges out in the plane of its equator, and the sling, 
swung round in the hand, increases in speed as the string is short- 
ened. The philosopher, on observing these phenomena, and finding 
incontestable proof that they are precisely of the same nature as 
those attending the formation and arrangement of worlds, learns 
his first great lesson — that the natural laws work on the minutest 
and the grandest scale indifferently; that, in fact, there is no such 
thing as great and small in nature, but world spaces are as a hair- 
breadth, and a thousand years as one day. 

" It would strengthen the presumption, and, indeed, place it near 



APPENDIX. 143 

to ascertained truths, if we were to obtain strong evidence for what 
has hitherto been called the nebular hypothesis. The evidence for 
it is sketched in the Vestiges; it is exhibited . . . in Professor 
Nichol's Views of the Architecture of the Heavens. The position 
held by this hypothesis in the philosophical world, when my book 
was written, is shown, with tolerable distinctness, in the Edinburgh 
Be view for 1838, where it is spoken of in the following general 
terms : — ' These views of the origin and destiny of the various sys- 
tem of worlds which fill the immensity of space, break upon the 
mind with all the interest of novelty, and all the Irwhtness of truth. 
Appealing to our imagination by their grandeur, and to our reason 
by the severe principles on which they rest y the mind feels as if a 
revelation had been vouchsafed to it of the past and future history 
of the universe/ 

" The chief objection taken to the theory is, that the existence of 
nebulous matter in the heavens is disproved by the discoveries made 
by the Earl of Rosse's telescope. By this wondrous tube, we are 
told it is shown to be ' an unwarrantable assumption that there are 
in the heavenly spaces any masses of matter different from solid bod- 
ies composing planetary systems.'* The fact is, that the nebulae 
were always understood to be of two kinds: 1, nebulae which were 
only distant clusters, and which yielded, one after another, to the 
resolving powers of telescopes, as these powers were increased ; 2, 
nebulse comparatively near, which no increase of telescopic power 
affected. Two classes of objects wholly different were, from their 
partial resemblance, recognized by one name, and hence the con- 
fusion which has arisen upon the subject." — Explan. of Vestiges. 

Professor Nichol says, "For instance, the nebula in Orion is 
visible to the naked eye, as also is the gorgeous one in Andromeda ; 
while the largest instrument heretofore turned to them has given 
no intimation that there light is stellar, but rather the contrary ; 
although small stars are found buried amidst their mass. Now, if 
Lord Rosse's telescope resolves these, and others with similar attri- 
butes, such as some of the streaks among the following plates, we 
shall thereby be informed that we have generalized too hastily from 
the character of known firmaments." 

" The foregoing being our grounds of belief in the existence of 

* North British Review, iii.. 477. 



144 APPENDIX, 

nebulae— first, in a diffused or chaotic state, and again in a condition 
proximate to pure stars; the only remaining point has reference to 
nebulae in an intermediate state, — when the roundish masses seem 
to have begun a process of organization or concentration, and car* 
ried it onwards through several stages : a state to which we have 
every variety of analogon in the various forms and densities of 
cometic nuclei. Sir William Herschel certainly was not ignorant 
that round or spherical clusters abound in the skies, which, when 
first seen, present all the appearances of such nebulae — nay, he 
grounded on the fact of their approximate sphericity and varying 
degrees of concentration, some of the boldest and most engrossing 
of his conjectures; nor would he have doubted that multitude 
which, even to his instruments, seemed only general lights, would, 
in after times, be resolved ; but here, as before, the gist of the 
question is not, can you resolve round nebulae never resolved be* 
fore ; but can you resolve such as, quite within the range of former 
vision, have continued intractable under the scrutiny of powers 
which, judging from the average of our experience, must surpass 
what ought to have resolved them?" — Explanations of Vestiges. 

" Herschel was led to the conclusion, that among the nebulae 
which were visible in the heavens, there were some composed of 
chaotic matter, a hazy, luminous fluid, like that occasionally thrown 
out from comets on their approach to the sun. 

"Among these chaotic masses he discovered some in which the 
evidences of condensation appeared manifest, while in others he 
found a circular disc of light, with a bright nucleus in the centre. 
Proceeding yet farther, he found well formed stars surrounded by a 
misty halo, which presented all the characteristics of what he now 
conceived to be nebulous fluid. Some of the unformed nebulae were 
of enormous extent, and among those partially condensed, such as 
the nebulae with planetary discs, many were found so vast that their 
magnitude would fill the space occupied by the sun and all its pla- 
nets, forming a sphere with a diameter of more than 6000 millions of 
miles. Uniting these and many other facts, the great astronomer 
was finally brought to believe, that worlds and systems of worlds 
might yet be in the process of formation, by the gradual condensa- 
tion of this nebulous fluid, and that from this chaotic matter origi- 
nally came the sun and all the fixed stars which crowd the heavens* 
This theory, extended, but not modified, in the hands of Laplace, is 



APPENDIX. 145 

made to account for nearly all the phenomena of the solar system. 

"For a long time, this bold and sublime speculation was looked 
upon, even by the wisest philosophers, with remarkable favour. 
The resolution of one or two nebulae (so classed by Herschel,) with 
the fifty-two feet reflector of Lord Rosse, has induced some persons 
to abandon the theory, and to attempt to prove its utter impossibi- 
lity. All that I have to say, is, that Herschel only adopted the 
theory after he had resolved many hundreds of nebulae into stars ; 
and if there ever existed a reason for accepting the truth of this 
remarkable speculation, that reason has been scarcely in any de- 
affected by recent discoveries. 

M I have examined a large number of the mysterious objects, float- 
ing on the deep ocean of space like the faintest filmy clouds of light. 
No power, however great, of the telescope, can accomplish the 
slightest change in their appearance. So distant that their light 
employs (in case they be clusters) hundreds of thousands of years 
in reaching the eye that gazes upon them, and so extensive, even 
when viewed from such a distance, as to fill the entire field of view 
of the telescope many times. Sirius, the brightest, and probably the 
largest of all the fixed stars, with a diameter of more than a million 
miles, and a distance of only a single unit, compared with the tens 
of thousands which divide us from some of the nebulae ; and yet 
this vast globe, at this comparatively short distance, is an inappre* 
ciable point in the field of the telescope." — Mitch-el, 



APPEXDIX L 

"The following discourses . . . were intended to explain 
what is meant by the nature of man, when it is said that virtue 
consists in following, and vice in deviating from it, and, by explain- 
ing, to show that the assertion is true." Again,—" There are as 
real and the same hind of indications in human nature, that we were 
made for society and to do good to our felloic-creatures, as that we 
were intended to take care of our own life and health, and private 
good, and that the sanve objections lie against the one of these asser- 
tions as against the other. 

"Had conscience strength, as it has right; had it power, as it 
has manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the world. This 

M 



146 APPENDIX. 

gives us a further view of the nature of man ; shews us what course 
of life we were made for." . . . . " As in civil government the 
constitution is broken in upon and violated by power and strength 
prevailing over authority ; so the constitutional man is broken in 
upon and violated by the lower faculties, or principles within, pre- 
vailing over that, which is in its nature supreme over them all. " 
Again, — " It will as fully appear, that this our nature, i. e. constitu- 
tion, is adapted to virtue, as from the idea of a watch it appears, 
that its nature, i. e. constitution or system, is adapted to measure 
time. What in fact or event commonly happens, is nothing to this 
question. Every work of art is apt to be out of order ; but this is 
so far from being according to its system, that let the disorder in- 
crease, and it will totally destroy it." 

And he thinks, " that, from what appears, there is no ground 
to assert, that those principles in the nature of man, which most 
directly lead to promote the good of our fellow-creatures, are more 
generally, or in a greater degree violated, than those which most 
directly lead us to promote our own private good and happiness." 
— Bishop Butler } s Sermons on Human Nature and, Preface. 



APPENDIX J. 

{Insert the following verses — omitted by mistake— after the last verse 
on page 51.) 

How matchless that band, 
Whose muscles expand, 

Or contract, round the circle of sight, 
To abridge or enlarge 
The pupil's scant marge, 

As we pass from bright day into night. 

How curious to find 
The eye, from behind, 

Swung forward by pully and chord, 
That, on the sky's rim, 
Yon spire-top be seen, 

No less than this green trampled sward. 



APPENDIX. 147 

But why linger more 
On subjects, whose store 

Of seeming adjustments to ends 
Abounds, in bird, brute, 
Fish, insect, and fruit, 

And far as life's empire extends. 

Doth God lack the skill, 
Or, further, the will, 

To render his creature here blest? 
Is Death the one goal 
Of all ; life man's whole 

Of being ; his dream of unrest ? 

And yet, when we see 
The variety 

Of boundless, benignant design, 
Or seeming; and look 
Within the God's book, 

The brain, on whose pages divine 

Is writ, by the hand 
Of God, each command, 

To reverence truth and do right, 
Be kind, and still hope ; 
We ask, if their scope, 

When read in the heart's mellow light, 

Points not, through the' abyss 
Of darkness, to this, 

Eventual truth, right, and good ? 
Or shall he, who wore 
Toil's garb, evermore 

Be o'erlooked or forgotten by God ? 

But if in the sky 

He dwells, whom the cry 

Of manifold misery moves, 



148 APPENDIX, 

If woe be the blight 
Of being — the night, 

Whose permanence God disapproves; 

If life has a plan, 
And good will to man 

Stands clearly defined in the scheme ; 
Then, is the effect 
Such, as we connect 

With skill, power, and goodness supreme £ 

Yet nature draws good 
From all things : the food 

Of life from the limbs of the dead 
No blade runs to waste ; 
The germ in the mast 

By the sere leaves of autumn is fed. 

But if not down here, 
Exists there nowhere 

In the empires of mind, time, or space, 
A kingdom where good 
Dies not in the bud 

But ever unfolds, in rich grace, 

By God-conferred power, 
The bud into flower, 

The flower into ripe, golden fruit, 
To thus make it clear 
At length, in each sphere, 

That all things in goodness have root. 



APPENDIX K. 

I think it right to make some acknowledgments to the able 
author of an article in a late number of the Westminster Review, on 
the book of Job, for some remarks on this subject : and here let me 
acknowledge my indebtedness to any author, to whom, consciously 
or unconsciously, I may be under any literary obligations. 



APPENDIX. 149 

APPENDIX L. 

What is God ? What is nature ? What are we ? What is the 
nature of our mutual relations ? Do we live in the pulsations of 
his being, as the flower in the tree ? Or sitteth he in the circle of 
the Heavens, spinning systems within systems through the azure 
firmament, and yet personally overseeing the minutest incident on 
earth ? Is he disinterested in his dealings with us ? Whence come 
we, and whither do we go ? To such questions what answers do we 
get from reason ? " Is it a pleasure to the Almighty that thou art 
righteous : or a gain to him, that thou makest thy ways perfect be- 
fore him ? " Or takes he satisfaction, on his own account, in the 
obedience and praises of man ? 

" Is Godhead allied 

To the weakness of him he hath made ?" 

—Page 60. 

Is the love of approval a weakness ? Or is it untrue, or a low- 
ering of the Divine, to suppose that he has pleasure in the 
awe-struck admiration of man ? Is genuine greatness and noble- 
ness affronted at the thought ? Does it anthropomorphose Deity ? 
How narrow is the compass of our positive knowledge ! 



APPENDIX M. 

What is the end of worship ? The good it is calculated to do us ; 
or the satisfaction it gives God ; or both? Worship is the outgo- 
ing of the reverential feelings towards its object. 



APPENDIX N. 

But the "wind" in all its fluctuations, and "dreams" in their wild- 
est vagaries, are themselves the result of causes adequate and 
only adequate to their production. 

M* 



150 APPENDIX. 

APPENDIX 0. 

"Were there no stronger objections against" this doctrine 
" than this universal contradiction which it offers to all hu- 
man belief, conduct and language, to all judgments and feelings, 
it would even then be more completely answered than it deserves." 

According to " Hume, a cause is merely the aggregate of cir- 
cumstances constantly preceding in nature the production of any 
effect." — Jouff Toy's Introduction to Ethics. 

We give both sides. Let the thoughtful reader carefully draw 
his own conclusion. 



APPENDIX P. 

That is, in the very act of dreaming we ask, can it be a dream 
when we see, Ac. 

" The illusion of dreams is much more complete than that of the 
most exquisite plays. We pass, in a second of time, from one 
country to another, and persons who lived in the most different 
ages of the world, are brought together in strange and incongruous 
confusion ." — Macnish. 



APPENDIX Q. 
Swedenborg, for instance. 



APPENDIX R. 

Manso, the friend of Tasso, had, says Mr. Hoole. " an opportuni- 
ty of examining the singular effects of Tasso's melancholy, and often 
disputed him concerning a familiar spirit which he pretended con- 
versed with him : Manso endeavored in vain to persuade his friend 
that the whole was the illusion of a disturbed imagination ; but the 
latter was strenuous in maintaining the reality of what he asserted, 
and, to convince Manso, desired him to be present at one of the 
mysterious conversations. Manso had the complaisance to meet 
him the next day, and while they were engaged in discourse, on a 
sudden he observed that Tasso kept his eyes fixed on a window, and 



APPENDIX. 151 

remained in a manner immovable ; he called him by his name, but 
received no answer; at last Tasso cried out, * There is the friendly 
spirit that is come to converse with me ; look ! and you will be con- 
vinced of all I have said.' Manso heard him with surprise; he 
looked but saw nothing except the sunbeams darting through the 
windows ; he cast his eyes all over the room, but could perceive 
nothing ; and was just going to ask where the pretended spirit was, 
when he heard Tasso speak with great earnestness, sometimes put- 
ting questions to the spirit, sometimes giving answers : delivering 
the whole in such a pleasing manner, and in such elevated expres- 
sions, that he listened with admiration, and had not the least inch- 
nation to interrupt him. At last the uncommon conversation ended 
with the departure of the spirit, as appeared by Tasso's own words, 
who, turning to Manso, asked him if his doubts were removed. 
Manso was more amazed than ever ; he scarce knew what to think 
of his friend's situation, and waived any further conversation on the 
subject." — Macnistis Philosophy of Sleep. 



APPENDIX S. 

" The tree is green and hard, not of its own natural virtue, but 
simply because my eye and my hand are fashioned so as to discern 
such and such appearances under such and such conditions." — 
GarlyWs Essay on Novalis. 

APPENDIX T. 

See a clever article in a late number of the London Quarterly ■, 
on Biology, &c. 

APPENDIX U. 

" The sun, attended by all its planets, satellites, and comets, is 
sweeping through space towards a star in the constellation Hercules 
with a velocity which causes it to pass over a distance equal to 
33,350,000 miles in every year . . with but one chance out of 
400,000 that astronomers have been deceived." " The extension of 
the law of gravitation to the fixed stars .... settles forever 
the fact, that in the grand association of stars composing our clus- 



152 APPENDIX. 

ter, or, as we shall hereafter call it, our astral system, there must be 
a centre of gravity, as certainly as there is one to the solar system." 
" The data for such an examination must be found in the direction 
of the solar motion, and m that of the proper motion of the fixed 
stars." . . "After a profound examination, Maedler reached the 
conclusion that Alcyone, the principal star in the group of the Pleia- 
des, now occupies the centre of gravity, and is at present the sun about 
which the universe of stars composing our astral system are all re- 
volving" — Mitchel. 



APPENDIX V. (to Page 107.) 
For the idealism of India, see the works of Sir William Jones. 



APPENDIX V. (to Page 114.) 

" Like as a star, 
That maketh not haste, 
That taketh not rest, 
Be each one fulfilling 
His God-given hest." 

— Goethe in Carltle. 



APPENDIX W. 

" Turgot said, 'He that has never doubted the existence of mat- 
ter, may be assured he has no aptitude for metaphysical enquiries. , " 

— Emerson. 

Mr.Carlyle says, " In all (?) German systems, since the time of 
Kant, it is a fundamental principle to deny the existence of matter ; 
or rather, we should say, to believe it in a radically different sense 
from that in which the Scotch Philosopher, &c. Indeed, it is singu- 
lar how widely diffused, and under what different aspects we meet 
with it among the most dissimilar classes of mankind. Our Bishop 
Berkeley seems to have adopted it from religious inducements ; 
Father Boscovich was led to a very cognate result . . . from 
merely mathematical considerations. Of the ancient Pyrrho or the 



APPENDIX. 153 

modern Hume, we do not speak : but in the opposite end of the 
earth, as Sir William Jones informs us, a similar theory of imme- 
morial age, prevails among the Theologians of Hindustan. Nay, 
Professor Stuart has declared his opinion, that whoever at some 
time of his life has not entertained this theory, may reckon that he 
has shown no talent for metaphysical research. 

" The Idealist boasts that his Philosophy is transcendental, that 
is, l ascending beyond the senses.' . . . To a transcendentaiist, 
matter has an existence but only as a phenomenon : were we not 
there, neither would it be there ; it is a mere relation, or rather the 
result of a relation between our living souls and the great first 
cause . . . Bring a sentient Being, with eyes a little different, 
with fingers ten times harder than mine, and to him that thing 
which I call a tree shall be yellow and soft, as truly as to me it is 
green and hard. Form his nervous structure in all points the re- 
verse of mine, and this same tree shall not be combustible, or heat 
producing, but dissoluble and cold producing; not high and con- 
vex, but deep and concave. There is, in fact, says Fichte, no tree 
there, but only a manifestation of power from something which is 
not /..... 

" But farther . . . according to these Kantean systems, the 
organs of the mind too, what is called the understanding, are of no 
less arbitrary, and, as it were, accidental a character than those of 
the body .... there is no time and no space out of the mind; 
they are mere forms of man's spiritual being, laves under which his 
thinking nature is constituted to act. This seems the hardest con- 
clusion of all ; but it is an important one with Kant ; and is not given 
forth as a dogma, but carefully deduced in his ' Critih der Reinen 
Vernunftf with great precision, and the strictest form of argument." 
— Essay on Kovalis. 

Emerson says, " Idealism acquaints us with the total disparity 
between the evidence of our own being and the evidence of the 
world's being. . . Idealism sees the world in God. It beholds the 
whole circle of persons and things, of actions and events, of coun- 
try and religion, not as painfully accumulated, atom after atom, 
act after act, in an aged creeping past, but as one vast picture, 
which God paints on the instant eternity, for the contemplation of 
the soul." — Essays. 

"Kant," says Menzel, "had adopted a subjective knowledge of 



154 APPENDIX. 

the objective world, and had put the two in such relations with each 
other, that we perceive an object indeed, but only according to sub- 
jective laws of the reason within us, and that the object indeed ap- 
pears to us only under the subjective conditions, but yet may be 
something in itself. It was observed that this could lead to no ab- 
solute knowledge, and the absolutists separated from the school. 
Some became absolute subjectists, who directly denied the indepen- 
dent existence of the objective world, which Kant had left in doubt; 
others became absolute objectists, who made the subjective percep- 
tion dependent on the real existence of the object; others still 
adopted an absolute identity between soul and nature, the subjec- 
tive and objective world, the perception and its object. . . . 
To Schelling, mind and nature are alike mere emanations, phenom- 
ena, manifestations of the divine idea." — German Literature. 

" "With God as it is a universal here, so is it an everlasting now. 

And seest thou therein any glimpse of Immortality 

Is the lost Friend still mysteriously Here, even as we are Here 
mysteriously with God." — Carlyle. 

Causes are potent, (I think, I have seen it so stated,) in propor- 
tion as they recede from the material towards the spiritual — water, 
by its weight, i. e., invisible gravity; and as invisible steam. 
What are heat, electricity, mignetism ? My arm is moved by im- 
ponderable, impalpable, invisible mind. Has matter, as such, any, 
or what force ? \ 

And are not the questions important, whether matter be the 
creature of the mind; or the mind, the result of a certain organiza" 
tion of matter ; or whether matter and mind — though a disease of 
some of the material organs seems to weaken or confuse, and even- 
tually to destroy, the thinking powers — be not distinct, and matter 
merely furnish the organs through which the mind acts. On these 
and other questions, to whatever side my impressions, as a Student 
of Nature, or inclinations may lean, I wish the Reader to form an 
independent opinion ; as though, when not the advocate, in rhyme 
or otherwise, of a particular dogma, I had no opinion of my own. 

Is not our life a mystery ! " The man who cannot wonder, were 
he President of innumerable Royal Societies, and carried the whole 
Mecanique Celeste ... in his head, is but a pair of Spectacles 
behind which there is no eye." — Sartor Besartus. 



APPENDIX. 155 

" To this one end of Discipline, all parts of nature conspire. A 
noble thought perpetually suggests itself, whether this end be not 
the Final Cause of the Universe ; and whether nature outwardly 
exists. It is a suincient account of that appearance we call the 
World, that G-od will teach a human mind, and so makes it the re- 
ceiver of a certain number of congruent sensations, which we call 
sun and moon, man and woman, house and trade. In my utter 
impotence to test the authenticity of the report of my senses, to 
know whether the impressions they make on me correspond with 
outlaying objects, what difference does it make whether Orion is up 
there in Heaven, &c. ... or, whether, without relations of 
time and space, the same appearances are inscribed in the constant 
faith of man'' .... whose " wheels and springs are ail set to 
the hypothesis of the permanence of nature." 

"Nature is a discipline . . . space, time, society, labour, 
climate, food, locomotion, the animals, the mechanical forces, give 
us sincerest lessons, day by day, whose meaning is unlimited . 
every property of matter is a school for the understanding, which 
adds, divides, combines, measures." . . . "Meantime, Reason 
transfers all these lessons into its own world of thought." . . . 
" Our dealing with sensible objects is a constant exercise in the ne- 
cessary lessons of difference, of likeness, of order, of being and 

seeming Proportioned to the importance of the organ 

to be formed, is the extreme care with which its tuition is provided 
. . . . What tedious training, day after day, year after year. 
. . . . to form the common sense; what continual reproduction 
of annoyances, inconveniences, dilemmas." .... "What a 
searching preacher of self-command is the varying phenomenon of 
Health." 



The fossiliferous strata in an ascending scale, commencing from 
the oldest to the most recent.* 
PRIMARY. 
Lower Silurian contains invertebrate creatures: no land plants. 
Upper Silurian — Oldest fossil fish. 

*For the subject-matter of this, see the "Manual " of Sir C. Lyell, 
whose very words are generally employed. In this list we give 
a few of the (supposed) highest creatures in each stratum or group. 



156 APPENDIX. 

* Old Red Sandstone — Tribe of fish with hard coverings like 
chelonian : oldest known reptile, Archegosaurus. 

Carboniferous — Reptiles. 

Permian or Magnesian Limestone Group — Thecodont Saurians. 
SECONDARY. 

Trias or Upper New Red — Batrachian Reptiles, probably, tracks 
of Birds in the supposed Trias of Connecticut, and two molar teethf 
with " the characteristic mammalian test, the double fang." 

Lias — Reptiles extraordinary in number, size, and structure. 

Oolite — Saurians, flying Saurians, three species of Mammalia. 

Wealden — Reptiles of the genera Pterodactyl, Iguanodon, Me- 
galosaurus, Emys, &c. 

Cretaceous — A Marine formation. A rich Reptilian Fauna ; tur- 
tles, oviparous Saurians, Pterodactyl. 

TERTIARY. % 

Eocene — " All the Mammalia of extinct species, and the greater 
part of them of extinct genera." 

Miocene — "All the Mammalia extinct." 

Pliocene — "Nearly, if not all, the Mammalia extinct." 

Pleistocene — "A majority of the Mammalia extinct; but the ge- 
nera corresponding with those now surviving in," Ac. 
POST TERTIARY. 

Post- Pleistocene — " Bones of quadrupeds, partly of extinct 
species." 

Recent — " Human remains and works of art."|| 



* " The link supplied by the whole assemblage of imbedded fos- 
sils, connecting as it does the paleontology of the Silurian and Car- 
boniferous groups, is of the highest interest, and equally striking, 
whether we regard the genera of corals or of shells. The species 
are almost all distinct." 

t " Mr. Owen, to whom I have shown a cast of the smaller tooth, 
is not able to recognize its affinity with any mammalian type, recent 
or extinct, known to him." — LyeiCs Manual. 

J A "Monkey of the genus Macacus . . . and other Quad* 
rumena ... in different stages of the Tertiary."— LyelL 

|| That an animal has not yet been detected in a formation, is in 
itself no absolute proof that it does not exist, or has not existed, in 
it. Only two teeth seem to testify to the existence of Mammalia in 
the Trias. New facts may antiquate, (or may have antiquated,) our 
present knowledge, and yet not invalidate or disturb a broad gene- 
ralization ; or they may. 



*»i 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: March 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



